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Publications  op  the 


'ERE  SOCIETY  OF  PHILADELPHIA 


No.  5 


CONTEMPORARY  EVIDENCE 


OP 


SHAKESPEARE'S  IDENTITY 


R.  L  ASHHURST 

VICE-DEAN 


Read  before  the  Society  April  29th,  1903 


PHILADELPHIA 

MDCCCCIII 


'th  the  compliments  of 

ti  r^E  SHAKSPERE  SOCIETY 

)  j8ii  Walnut  Street. 

\ 
\ 


Publications  op  the 

Shakspere  Society  of  Philadelphia 

No.  5 


CONTEMPORARY  EVIDENCE 


OP 


SHAKESPEARE'S  IDENTITY 


BY 


R.  L  ASHHURST 

VICE-DEAN 


Read  before  the  Society  April  29th,  1903 


PHILADELPHIA 

MDCCCCIII 


iVt:f;iC:iT-H 


At  the  meeting  of  the  Shakspere  Society  held  April 
29th,  1903,  the  following  resolution  was  unanimously 
adopted : — 

Resolved:  That  the  paper  prepared  by  the  Vice-Dean,  entitled 
Contemporary  Evidence  of  Shakespeare's  Identity,  be  printed  for 
the  Society. 


Allen,  Lane  &  Scott,  Prs. ,  Phila. 


At 

Contemporary  Evidence     ^^  ^^j 


OV 


SHAKESPEARE'S  IDENTITY 


In  taking  up  the  question,  whether  we  should  re- 
vise our  opinion  that  WilHam  Shakespeare,  bom  in 
Stratford-upon-Avon  in  1564,  was  the  author  of  the  plays 
we  know  as  Shakespeare's,  it  seems  to  me  we  should  first 
review  the  extrinsic  evidence  on  which  for  the  last  three 
centuries  the  Engli^lj-speaking  world  has  been  satisfied  to 
accept  that  belief.  The  Anti-Shakespeareans,  Baconians 
and  others,  seem  to  me  for  the  most  part  to  pass  by  all 
these  primary  outside  evidences  prior  to  the  folio  of  1623, 
and  to  asstmie,  that  the  evidence  of  Shakespeare's  author- 
ship of  his  dramas,  is  based  entirely  on  Hemmings  & 
Condell's  statement.  By  a  hasty  assumption  of  an  absolute 
illiteracy,  on  the  part  of  the  actor  at  the  Curtain  and  Globe 
Theatres,  on  the  one  hand,  and  an  almost  equally  rash  im- 
putation of  nearly  universal  knowledge  and  culture,  to  the 
author  of  the  dramas  on  the  other,  they  raise  an  ap- 
parent incongruity  which  they  claim  to  be  insuperable ; 
and  thus  leave  the  field  open,  for  the  wild  dreams  and 
theories  of  Baconian  or  syndicate  authorship,  cypher 
secret s7  and  historic  mysteries  in  which  they  delight. 
So  long  as  the  world  holds  so  many  studentes  novarum 
rerum,  who  are  ready  to  accept  omne  tgnotum  pro  miri- 
fico,  they  will  never  lack  readers  and  followers. 


4 

Study  of  the  intrinsic  probability  of  the  actor  Will- 
iam Shakespeare,  and  no  one  else,  being  the  author  of 
the  plays  we  know,  is  full  of  interest,  and  will,  I  think, 
bring  the  earnest  and  fair-minded  inquirer  to  the  same 
satisfactory  conclusion  as  the  external  evidence ;  but  the 
purpose  of  this  paper  is  narrower,  and  it  will  be  limited 
to  the  collocation  and  review  of  some  of  the  contem- 
porary evidences  of  Shakespeare  being  the  author  of  his 
plays.  In  contemporaneous  evidence  I  include,  however, 
that  of  some  writers  not  absolutely  synchronous  with  the 
poet,  but  who  belonged  to  the  generation  immediately 
succeeding  Shakespeare's,  and  mingled  and  conversed 
with  his  contemporaries  and  acquaintances*'  The  Anti- 
Shakespeareans,  as  I  have  mentioned,  often  speak  as  if 
little  or  nothing,  had  been  known  or  heard  of  William 
Shakespeare  as  a  poet,  or  dramatist,  prior  to  the  publica- 
tion of  the  first  folio,  but  I  think  the  previous  thirty 
years  yield  us  a  quantity  of  facts  and  information, 
about  him,  quite  sufficient  to  support  his  claim  to  be  the 
author  of  his  plays,  while  there  is  absolutely  no  indica- 
tion of  any  other  William  Shakespeare  Jthan  the  actor 
at  the  Globe  being  known  or  heard  of.  '  There  is  no 
contemporaneous  hint  or  suggestion  or""a  difference  in 
authorship  between  the  plays  and  poems,  or  among  the 
plays,  except  that  some  title  pages  indicate  that  certain 
plays  may  not  have  been  wholly  from  Shakespeare's  pen ; 
and  no  doubt  or  difficulty  is  intimated  in  any  con- 
temporaneous writing  as  to  the  actor  William  Shakespeare 
being  the  author  of  the  works  which  even  then  received 
a  high  meed  of  admiration. 

It  perhaps  would  not  have  been  altogether  surprising 
had  the  origin  of  the  greatest  dramas  known  to  literature 
remained  in  obscurity.  The  greatest  poet  the  world 
ever  knew  before  Shakespeare,  lived  in  an  age  of  bar- 
barism, compared  to  which  life  at  Stratford  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  was  a  period  of  civilization  and  culture. 


It  is  not  claimed  that  he  could  read  or  write,  it  is  even 
doubtful  if  in  his  day,  letters  had  been  introduced  into 
his  country.  Tradition  says  he  was  blind,  and  his  birth- 
place is  unknown.  Yet  the  world's  greatest  epics  have 
come  down  to  us,  as  the  production  of  the  old  blind  bard 
Homer,  collected  centuries  afterwards,  from  the  recitations 
of  wandering  harpers.  It  is  true  some  critics  have  under- 
taken to  divide  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  among  several 
hands,  and  even  the  more  conservative  are  willing  to  admit 
that  part  at  least  of  the  Iliad  came  from  a  different  source, 
but  still  the  fact  remains  that  by  almost  unanimous 
consensus,  nearly  all  the  Odyssey  and  the  finest  books 
of  the  Iliad,  are  the  composition  of  a  wandering  minstrel, 
bom  in  one  of  the  islands  of  the  .-Egean,  or  one  of  the  Greek 
cities  of  Asia  Minor,  who  sang  these  immortal  verses  to  his 
harp  or  lyre,  as  he  journeyed  from  place  to  place.  These 
compositions  are  to  this  day,  the  greatest  epics  poet  ever 
said  or  sung,  and  until  Shakespeare's  dramas  were  pro- 
duced, the  name  of  Homer  stood  beyond  rivalry  on  the 
roll  of  poetic  fame,  and  the  miracle  of  his  appearance  in 
the  Bronze  Age,  cannot  be  diminished  by  any  theory  of 
there  having  been  several  of  him. 

^n  the  case,-fe«wewr,  -of  our  actor-poet ;  within  a  few 
years  after  the  production  on  the  stage  of  the  earliest  of 
the  plays  we  know  as  his,  they  were  recognized  as  the 
handiwork  of  an  actor  about  thirty  years  old,  then  play- 
ing at  the  Theatre  and  Ciirtain,  whose  name  was  William 
Shakespeare  and  who  had  come  up  to  London  several 
years  previously  from  Stratford-upon-Avon,  and  for  more 
than  three  centuries  they  have  been  attributed  to  him. 
Let  me  recapitulate  briefly  what  we  know  of  this  William 
Shakespeare's  life,  as  it  is  in  some  respects  important  in 
.view  of  contemporary  allusion. 

We  know  that  he  was  the  son  of  John  Shakespeare  and 
Mary  Arden  and  bom  in  Stratford-upon-Avon  in  1564. 
John  was  the  son  of  Richard  Shakespeare,  a  farmer;  his 


brother  Henry  carried  on  the  farm  and  John  drifted  into 
the  town.  He  is  variously  mentioned  as  having  been  a 
butcher  or  wool  dealer,  and  a  glover.  All  three  statements 
are  probably  true.  He  was  doubtless  a  dealer  in  cattle 
and  sheep,  and  their  skins  and  fleeces.  He  married 
above  his^  station.  Robert  Arden,  his  bride's  father,  of 
Wilmecote  or  Wyncote,  was  a  substantial  yeoman,  and 
if  not  a  gentleman  technically,  stood  only  just  below  that 
rank,  and  by  his  will  left  his  daughter  a  valuable  farm 
and  what  was  a  large  stim  of  money  for  those  days.  John 
Shakespeare  advanced  himself  in  life  after  his  marriage, 
and  became  bailiff,  the  principal  office,  corresponding 
to  mayor,  of  Stratford,  and  held  the  position  for  several 
years.  During  Shakespeare's  boyhood,  therefore,  his 
circimistances  were  of  the  most  favorable,  for  that  locality, 
and  if  he  didjiot  have  every  advantage  of  education  which 
Stratford  possessed,  it  would  be  rather  remarkable  in 
view  of  his  father's  position.  Had  it  not  been  for  his 
father's  misfortunes,  there  is  no  reason  he  should  not  have 
gone  to  an  imiversity,  as  well  as  Marlowe  or  Ben  Jonson. 
Some  time  towards  1 580  or  a  little  earlier  John  Shakespeare 
fell  into  pectmiary  trouble  and  was  obliged  to  mortgage 
the  farm  inherited  from  th^Ardens,  and  lost  it  by  not 
paying  the  debt  when  due.^^^his  is  an  important  point 
in  discussing  the  question  of  the  intrinsic  evidence  of 
authorship — but  that  is  another  story. 

William  foimd  himself  when  a  growing  lad,  in  the  try- 
ing position  of  being  a  member  of  a  family  in  declining 
circimistances,  and  was  obliged  to  take  up  life's  burdens 
at  an  early  age,  without  an  opportimity  of  completing 
the  education  he  had  pretty  certainly  commenced.  It 
is  reported  that  he  worked  for  his  father  as  a  butcher  ; 
another  tradition  says  he  at  one  time  taught  school ;  both 
or  neither  stories  may  be  true.  Certain  it  is  he  added 
to  the  complexity  of  the  situation  by  marrying  at  eighteen 
Ann  Hathaway,  a  woman  several  years  his  senior,  by 


7  ^   _ 

whom  he  had  within  two  years,  three  children.  (It  is  not 
remarkable  that  the  youth  should  have  faneii"~among 
gay  companions,  and  there  is  no  improbability  in  his 
having,  as  related  by  tradition,  poached  on  Sir  Thomas 
Lacy's  park  and  killed  his  deer.  The  further  part  of 
the  story,  that  he  was  cruelly  pimished  by  Sir  Thomas 
as  magistrate  and  avenged  himself  so  bitterly  by  a  1am- 
4ioon  that  he  had  to  flee  the  country,  is  equally  probable, 
[certain  it  is  that  in  1584  or  1585  he  left  Stratford  and 
appeared  in  London,  probably  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Shoreditch  and  Hol)rwell,  where  the  two  buildings  known 
as  the  Theatre  and  the  Curtain,  both  used  for  dramatic 
purposes,  then  stood.  This  was  quite  out  in  the  fields 
at  that  time,  perhaps  half  a  mile  from  the  city  streets, 
and  many  of  the  frequenters  of  the  theatres  came  on 
horseback.  Tradition  relates  that  when  William  Shakes- 
peare first  came  to  London  he  held  gentlemen's  horses 
at  the  Theatre,  and  being  popular  as  well  for  his  relia- 
bility, as  his  pleasant  address,  was  so  much  in  request 
that  he  employed  other  boys  imder  him  for  the  same 
purpose,  thus  developing  a  profitable  business.  ^This 
story  perhaps  reminds  us  a  little  too  much  of  Whit- 
tington,  and  of  Sir  Joseph  Porter,  K.  C.  B.,  to  command 
our  full  credence,  but  it  receives  some  confirmation  from 
Greene's  reference  in  the  passage  I  will  presently  discuss, 
to  the  Curtain  actors  .as  "  Rude  Groomes."  It  is  also, 
I  believe,  a  fact,  that  [some  of  the  Burbage  family  had 
a  livery  stable  near  the  Theatre.  ^| 
L  From  William  Shakespeare's  disappearance  from  Strat- 
ford about  1584  or  1585,  imtil  the  appearance  of  the  first 
quarto  edition  of  "Venus  and  Adonis"  with  his  name 
as  its  author,  in  1593,  we  are  without  any  absolute  or 
direct  knowledge  of  his  life  or  doings;  and  during  the 
earlier  five  or  six  years  of  this  period  he  is  completely 
lost  to  our  cognizance.  |He  may  have  visited  Italy, 
Germany,  or  Denmark,  or  have  given  himself  to  secluded 


8 

study  for  all  we  know  to  the  contrary./  It  is  not  tintil 
1 591  and  1592  that  we  meet  with  the  first  hints  of  his 
existence,  and  this  not  with  direct  mention  of  his  name 
jifeut  with  an  indirect  punning  reference  to  it.  \ 
''"  In  1595  appeared  Edmund  Spenser's  "Colin  Clout's 
Come  Home  Again,"  the  dedication  to  which,  however, 
being  dated  December  27th,  1591,  is  usually  considered 
to  fix  the  date  as  of  that  year,  though  it  is  the  general 
opinion  of  Spenserian  critics  that  some  of  the  stanzas 
were  added  between  1592  and  1594.  In  this  poem, 
which  contains  complimentary  allusions  to  many  of  his 
contemporaries,  Spenser  says: — 

"And  then,  though  last  not  least  is  Action, 
A  gentler  shepheard  may  nowhere  be  found 
Whose  muse  full  of  high  thoughts  invention 
Doth  like  himself  Heroically  sound." 

The  name  "Action"  is  doubtless  a  derivative  of  the 
Greek  **  Aetos,"  "  an  eagle,"  and  indicates  the  high  soaring 
invention  of  the  poet  commemorated.  It  will  be  noticed 
that  Spenser  speaks  of  this  poet  both  as  a  gentle  shepherd, 
indicating  some  peaceful  and  probably  comic  productions, 
and  as  an  eagle  producing  high,  heroic  verses  such  as 
would  be  suggested  by  his  sonorous  name.  The  name  of 
Shakespeare  would  naturally  occur  to  us  as  probably 
meant,  and  the  heroic  muse  referred  to  as  relating  to 
the  commemoration  of  Talbot  in  i  Henry  VI.,  which  we 
know  acquired  early  popularity ;  but  the  conclusion  would 
not  be  inevitable  but  for  the  savage,  ptinning  allusion 
to  Shakespeare's  name  in  Greene's  "Groat's  Worth  of 
Wit , ' '  published  in  1592.  During  the  same  period  in  which 
William  Shakespeare  came  up  to  London  many  young 
men  of  brilliant  ability,  and  some  of  them  with  better 
educational  advantages,  had  drifted  thither,  and  con- 
nected themselves  more  or  less  with  the  stage.  Among 
these  were  Marlowe,  Greene,  Lodge,  Nash,  and  Peele, 
all  of  whom  were,  I  believe,  graduates  of  Cambridge,  and 


of  whom  some  were  actors.  Marlowe,  who  was  imhappily 
killed  in  a  tavem  brawl  in  1593,  was  far  the  greatest  and 
strongest  of  the  group  and  was  eminent  as  a  lyric  poet  as 
well  as  a  dramatist,  and  his  "Hero  and  Leander"  and 
translations  from  Ovid,  as  well  as  his  ''Edward  II."  and 
"Jew  of  Malta,"  had  a  powerful  influence  on  the  mental 
development  of  the  poet  we  know  as  Shakespeare. 

Lodge  was  the  author  of  "Rosalynde,"  a  poem  from 
which  the  plot  oi  As  You  Like  It  was  taken.  Greene 
himself  was  the  author  of  the  "  Tale  of  Pandosto,  or  the 
Triimiph  of  Time,  or  Dorastus  and  Fawnia,"  from  which 
the  writer  of  Winter's  Tale  obtained  the  plot  of  his  drama; 
and  Marlowe  and  Greene  in  collaboration,  are  believed  to 
have  been  the  authors  of  a  play  in  two  parts,  called  the 
Two-parts  of  the  contention  between  the  houses  of  York 
and  Lancaster  and  the  true  Tragedie  of  Richard  Duke 
of  York.  This  play  had  held  the  stage  for  some  years 
before  the  plays  which  we  know  as  the  last  two  parts 
of  Shakespeare's  Henry  VL  were  produced  anonymously 
at  the  Theatre  and  Curtain.  The  second  and  third  parts 
of  Henry  VL,  whose  titles  as  originally  published  in  1594 
and  1595  respectively,  showed  their  origin  though  with 
much  amplification,  are  largely  made  up  of  the  older  plays, 
which  doubtless  contained  fine  passages  in  Marlowe's 
best  vein,  but  the  later  form  included  also  many  addi- 
tions, which  seem  to  show  the  hand  of  the  poet  whom  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  call  Shakespeare.  The  first  part 
of  Henry  VL,  whether  or  not  exactly  as  we  know  it,  had 
also  been  produced  anonymously  at  least  as  early  as  1592, 
as  shown  by  entries  in  "  Henslow's  Diary,"  and  by  Nash's 
allusion  in  "  Pierce  Pennilesse"  (1592)  to  ''Brave  Talbot 
two  himdred  years  in  his  tomb  again  triumphing  over  the 
French ;  and  his  bones  new  embalmed  in  the  tears  of  ten 
thousand  spectators,  who  in  the  Tragedian  that  represents 
his  person,  imagine  they  behold  him  fresh  bleeding Ji^ 
\    As  is  well  known,  Greene's  "Groat's  Worth  of  Wit" 


10 

contains  in  its  concluding  pages  a  violent  attack  on  a  con- 
temporary actor  and  dramatist,  evidently  the  author  of 
the  last  two  parts  of  Henry  VI.,  and  almost  all  critics 
are  satisfied  Shakespeare  is  the  person  assailed.  •  I  con- 
fess to  me  the  conclusion  is  irresistible  that  tfie  actor, 
writer,  adaptgr^.  and  corrector  of  plays  referred  to  is 
Shakespeare.  I  The  earlier  part  of  the  pamphlet  contains 
much  lamentation  over  the  writer's  sins  and  offenses ;  then 
follow  addresses  to  three  of  the  writer's  friends,  first  to  one, 
certainly  Marlowe,whom  he  calls  the  Gracer  of  Tragedians, 
but  reproaches  with  his  Atheism,  which  he  urges  him  to 
abandon,  and  two  others  whom  he  warmly  praises,  prob- 
ably Lodge  and  Peele.  All  three  he  warns  against  the 
actors  and  "puppets  speaking  from  our  mouths;  anticks 
garnished  in  our  colours,"  but  particularly  one  whom  he 
calls  "an  upstart  crow  beautified  with  our  feathers."  ^ 
I    The  address  begins: —  ^ 

"To  those  Gentlemen  his  Quondam  acquaintaince, 
that  spend  their  wits  in  making  Playes,  R.  G.  wisheth 
a  better  exercise,  and  wisdome  to  preuent  his  extremities." 

"If  wofuU  experience  may  mooue  you  (Gentlemen) 
to  beware,  or  vnheard  wretchednes  intreat  you  to  take 
heed :  I  doubt  not  but  you  will  look  backe  with  sorrow,  on 
your  time  past,  and  endeuour  with  repentance  to  spend 
that  which  is  to  come.  Wonder  not,  (for  with  thee  will 
I  first  beginne)  thou  famous  gracer  of  Tragedians,  that 
Green,  who  hath  said  with  thee  like  the  foole,  in  his  heart. 
There  is  no  God,  should  now  give  glorie  vnto  his  great- 
nesse:  for  penetrating  is  his  power,  his  hand  lyes  heauy 
vpon  me,  he  hath  spoken  vnto  me  with  a  voyce  of  thtmder, 
and  I  haue  left,  (felt)  he  is  a  God  that  can  punish  enemies. 
Why  should  thy  excellent  wit,  his  gift  be  so  blinded,  that 
thou  shouldest  giue  no  glory  to  the  Giuer?        j 

*****  *-  * 

"With  thee  I  ioyne  yotmg  Juuenall,  that  by  ting  Satyr- 
ist,  that  lastly  with  mee  together  writ  a  Comedie.    Sweet 


II 

Boy,  might  I  aduise  thee,  be  aduised,  and  get  not  many 
enemies  by  bitter  words:    *    *    *  \^ 

"And  thou  no  lesse  deseniing  then  the  other  two,  in 
some  things  rarer,  in  nothing  inferiour,  driim  (as  myselfe) 
to  extreame  shifts,  a  little  haue  I  to  say  to  thee :  and  were 
it  not  an  idolatrous  oath,  I  would  sweare  by  sweet  S. 
George,  thou  are  vnworthy  better  hap,  sith  thou  dependest 
on  so  meane  a  stay.  Base  minded  men  all  three  of  you, 
if  by  my  misery  yee  bee  not  warned :  for  vnto  none  of  you 
(like  me)  sought  those  burs  to  cleaue;  those  Puppits  (I 
meane)  that  speake  from  our  mouths,  those  Anticks 
gamisht  in  our  colours.  Is  it  not  strange  that  I  to  whome 
they  all  have  bin  beholding:  is  it  not  like  that  you,  to 
whom  they  all  haue  bin  beholding,  shall  (were  yee  in  that 
case  that  I  am  now)  be  both,  of  them  at  once  forsaken? 
Yea  trust  them  not :  for  there  is  an  vpstart  Crow  beauti- 
fied with  our  Feathers,  that  with  his  Tygres  heart  wrapt 
in  a  Players  hyde,  supposes  hee  is  as  well  able  to  bombast 
out  a  Blanke  verse,  as  the  best  of  you:  and  beeing  an 
absolute  lohannes  fac  totum,  is  in  his  owne  conceyt  the 
onely  Shake-scene  in  a  Countrey.  Oh  that  I  might  in- 
treat  your  rare  wittes  to  bee  imployed  in  more  profitable 
courses :  and  let  these  Apes  imitate  your  past  Excellence, 
and  neuer  more  acquaynt  them  with  your  admyred 
Inuentions.  I  knowe  the  best  husband  of  you  all  will 
neuer  prooue  an  Usurer,  and  the  kindest  of  them  all  will 
neuer  proove  a  kinde  Nurse:  yet  whilst  you  may,  seeke 
you  better  Maisters:  for  it  is  a  pitty  men  of  such  rare 
wits  should  be  subject  to  the  pleasures  of  such  rude 
groomes. 

'*In  this  I  might  insert  two  more,  that  both  haue 
writte  against  these  buckram  Gentlemen:  but  let  their 
owne  worke  serue  to  witnesse  against  theyr  owne 
wickednesse,  if  they  perseuer  to  maintaine  any  more 
such  peasants.  For  other  new  commers,  I  leaue  them 
to  the  mercie  of  these  painted  monsters,  who  (I  doubt 


12 

not)  will  driue  the  best  minded  to  despise  them:  for 
the  rest,  it  skils  not  though  they  make  a  ieast  at 
them." 

TomyiilindTt-  is  absolutely  clear  this  must  refer  to 
Shakespeare.  First,  it  is  to  be  noticed  the  person  principally 
attacked  is  accused  of  plagiarism — he  is  an  upstart ;  that 
is,  a  newcomer  to  the  stage,  an  actor  who  claimed  and 
set  up  to  be  a  dramatic  writer  and  to  write  blank  verse  as 
well  as  Marlowe,  Greene  himself,  or  the  other  two,  whether 
Lodge  and  Peele  or  who,  matters  not.  Further,  this  up- 
start plagiarist,  beautified  with  other's  feathers,  is  an 
absolute  Johannes  factotum,  that  is,  Jack-of-all-trades ; 
just  as  some  modem  critics  imdertake  to  find  in  Shakes- 
peare's writings  a  familiarity  with  all  human,  knowledge, 
so  great,  that  he  must  be  not  one  man,  but  a  syndicate. 
Then  in  his  own  conceit  he  is  the  only  "  Shake-scene  in 
the  countrie."  Is  there  any  doubt  this  is  a  pun  on  the 
name  Shakespeare,  "  speare"  being  changed  to  "  scene  " 
because  he  is  an  actor?  Is  not  this  ptmning  reference 
viewed  in  connection  with  the  mention  of  the  heroically- 
soimding  name  by  Spenser,  conclusive  evidence  that  the 
actor  Shakespeare  was  meant?  But  if  any  doubt  could 
remain,  it  is  removed  by  his  giving  to  this  '*  upstart 
crow  "  a  ''  Tyger's  heart  wrapt  in  a  player's  hide."  This 
is  an  evident  parody  on  the  line  in  j  Henry  VI.,  I.  iv., 
137,  spoken  by  York:  *'0,  tiger's  heart  wrapp'd  in  a 
woman's  hide.' J 

This  line  is  found  in  the  quarto  of  1595,  the  title  page 
of  which  recites  it  had  been  sundry  times  acted,  and 
we  know  the  drama  had  been  played  as  early  as  1591,  and 
was  exceedingly  popular.  We  also  know  that  the  earlier 
form  of  this  play  was  attributed  to  Marlowe  and  Greene. 
Is  it  not  transparent  that  the  attributing  to  the  **  up- 
start crow,"  the  "Johannes  factotimi,"  the  only  '*  Shake- 
scene,"  of  "a  tyger's  heart  wrapped  in  a  player's  hide,'' 
was  because  Greene  meant  to  accuse  the  player  Shakes- 


13 

peare  of  stealing  his  and  Marlowe's  play,  and  this  whether 
this  particular  line  was  Shakespeare's  or  Marlowe's, 
though  I  think  the  implication  is  that  the  line  was 
Shakespeare's,  being  as  it  is,  part  of  one  of  the  splendid 
purple  patches  in  Henry  VI.  of  which  not  even  Marlowe 
was  quite  capable. 

There  may  also,  I  think,  be  a  fling  at  Shakespeare's 
rural  origin,  and  possible  employment  in  holding  horses, 
at  the  theatre  door,  in  the  characterization  of  the  actors 
as  peasants  and  rude  groomes.  In  any  event,  the  spiteful 
hostility  of  the  reference  makes  its  evidence.,  all  the 
stronger.  J  may  remark  parenthetically  that  phis  violent 
attack  on  Shakespeare's  personal  character,  is  the'oiily 
iiostile  reference  to  the  man,  we  find  in  all  the  literature  of 
'the  period,  while  there  are  many  passages  praising  his 
honesty,  kindness,  and  gentlenessT]  Perhaps  Greene  may 
not  have  personally  known  Shakespeare,  for  there  seems 
to  have  been  something  in  his  personal  presence  and 
manner  which  disarmed  hostility  and  won  affection. 
Greene's  indignation  was  not  without  excuse.  I  The  laws 
of  literary  property  were  in  a  chaotic  condition  in  those 
days,  but  it  would  seem  that  the  ownership  of  plays  pro- 
duced was,  according  to  usage  at  least,  vested  in  the 
proprietors  of  the  theatre.  Greene  in  his  Apologue  does 
not  deny  this,  but  for  this  reason,  and  for  the  ill  use  the 
theatre  owners  were  likely  to  make  of  their  property, 
advised  his  comrades  to  turn  their  talents  in  other  direc- 
tions, where  they  could  retain  control  over  the 
children  of  their  brain.  Having  this  absolute  property 
in  the  manuscripts  of  the  dramas  produced,  the  theatre 
owners  seem  to  have  been  within  their  legal  rights,  in 
having  plays  altered  and  rewritten  to  please  the 
popular  taste ;  and  a  young  actor  from  the  cotintry,  with 
facile  pen  and  not  specially  linked  to  the  dramatists  thus 
dealt  with,  by  ties  of  co-education  or  association,  was  a 
likely  person  to  be  selected  for  the  purpose.    We  cannot. 


14 

however,  be  surprised  that  the  playwriters  thus  written 
over  and  upon,  should  feel  themselves  wronged,  though 
they  had  no  legal  ground  of  complaint,  nor  that  they 
should  visit  their  wrath  on  the  youthful  writer,  who 
was  doing  his  best  to  please  his  patrons.  At  a  later 
period,  as  seems  to  be  shown  by  a  passage  from  Davies, 
to  which  particular  reference  will  be  made  later,  Shakes- 
peare's friends  noted  with  surprise  his  quiet  acquiescence 
in  the  appropriation  of  his  own  dramas,  and  their  absorp- 
tion in  the  general  theatre  stock. 

After  Greene's  death  appeared  a  poem  called  ''  Greene's 
Funerall,"  printed  in  1594,  the  author  calling  himself 
"R.  B.  Gent,"  who  wrote:— 

"  Greene  is  the  pleasing  Object  of  an  eie : 

Greene  pleasde  the  eies  of  all  that  lookt  upon  him. 

Green  is  the  ground  of  every  painter's  die ; 
Green  gave  the  ground  to  all  that  wrote  upon  him, 

Nay  more  the  men  that  so  eclipst  his  fame,  ^ 

Purloynde  his  plumes,  can  they  deny  the  same." 


Greene's  friend  therefore  after  his  death  repeats  the 
accusation  of  plagiary  against  those  who  wrote  upon  him, 
that  is,  as  I  understand,  rewrote  or  recast  his  productions. 
The  Apologue  was  published  about  September,  1592, 
soon  after  Greene's  death,  by  one  Chettle;  three  months 
later,  in  the  same  year,  viz.,  December  8th,  1592,  Chettle 
produced  a  pamphlet  called  "  Kindhart's  Dream,"  in 
which  he  apologizes  for  having  printed  this  attack,  of 
which  he  disclaims  the  composition. 

In  his  sketch  Chettle  wrote: — 

"  He  shew  reason  for  my  present  writing  *  *  *.  About 
three  months  since  died  M.  Robert  Greene,  leaving  many 
papers  in  stmdry  Booke  sellers  hands,  among  other  his 
Groat sworth  of  wit,  in  which  a  letter  written  to  divers 
playmakers,  is  offensively  by  one  or  two  of  them  taken ; 
and  because  on  the  dead  they  cannot  be  avenged,  they 


15 

wilfully  forge  in  their  conceites  a  living  Author,  and  after 
tossing  it  to  and  fro,  no  remedy,  but  it  must  light  on  me. 
*  *  ♦  With  neither  of  them  that  take  offence  was  I 
acquainted,  and  with  one  of  them  I  care  not  if  I  never 
be;  the  other  whome  at  that  time  I  did  not  so  much 
spare,  as  since  I  wish  I  had,  for  that  as  I  have  moderated 
the  heate  of  living  writers,  and  might  have  used  my  own 
discretion  (especially  in  such  a  case)  the  Author  beeing 
dead,  that  I  did  not  I  am  as  sory,  as  if  the  originall  fault 
had  beene  my  fault,  because  my  selfe  have  seene  his 
demeanor,  no  lesse  civill  than  he  exelent  in  the  qualitie 
he  professes:  Besides,  divers  of  worship  have  reported 
his  uprightnes  of  dealing,  which  argues  his  honesty, 
and  his  facetious  grace  in  writting,  that  aprooves  his 
Art."  l_. 

Greene  could  only  be  said  to  attack  two  persons  in  his 
Apologue — the  Atheist  "  Gracer  of  Tragedians,"  Mar- 
lowe, whom  he  rather  rebuked  and  admonished  for  his 
irreligion  than  attacked,  for  he  lauds  him  to  the  skies 
for  all  else,  and  the  actor  whom  he  denounces  as  a  pla- 
giarist, an  upstart  crow  beautified  with  stolen  feathers, 
an  anticke  ape,  a  Johannes  factotum,  and  as  wrapping 
a  "tyger's  hearte  in  a  player's  hide."  It  is  to  this 
second  party  that  Chettle's  apology  is  evidently  ad- 
dressed. He  recognized  that  the  party  attacked  was 
not  a  conceited  upstart,  but  of  civil  demean_o£j  He  was 
a  good  actor,  excellent  in  his  quality.  He  was  not  a 
thief,  strutting  in  borrowed  plumes,  but  an  honest  man, 
upright  in  his  dealings.  He  had  a  facetious  grace  in 
writing,  and  was  a  good  playwright  as  well  as  an  actor, 
and  was  esteemed  by  worthy  people.  Have  we  not  here 
direct  and  competent  evidence  that  in  1592,  William 
Shakespeare  the  actor  was  a  man,  who  while  not  without 
enemies,  was  known  and  esteemed  by  reputable  people, 
who  also  thought  well  of  writings  they  believed  to  be 
his? 


i6 

In  the  next  year,  1 593,  William  Shakespeare's  name  first 
appeared  in  print.  In  the  Stationers'  Register,  under  date 
of  April  1 8th,  Richard  Field  entered  a  book  called  ''Venus 
and  Adonis."  Now,  Richard  Field  was  a  Stratford  man, 
the  son  of  one  Henry  Field,  of  Stratford,  a  tanner.  Richard 
came  up  to  London  in  1579  and  was  apprenticed  to  a 
printer.  He  took  up  his  freedom  in  1587  and  soon  com- 
menced business  on  his  own  accoimt,  but  apparently  only 
in  a  small  way.  Later  in  the  year  1593  appeared  "  Venus 
and  Adonis,"  London,  imprinted  by  Richard  Field,  and 
to  be  sold  at  the  sign  of  the  White  Grey  Hoimd  in  Paul's 
Church  Yard.  There  would  certainly  be  no  more  likely 
publisher  of  the  poet-actor's  first  work  than  his  fellow- 
townsman,  and  probably  school  companion,  older  per- 
haps, by  a  few  years.  The  fact  is  also  not  without  sig- 
nificance, that  John  Shakespeare,  whose  circumstances 
had  apparently  improved  a  little;  and  who  had  always 
been  able  to  keep  his  house  on  the  village  street,  was  in 
1592  one  of  the  appraisers  of  the  goods  of  Henry  Field 
(Richard's  father),  who  died  in  August,  1592.  Neither 
the  copyright  entry,  nor  the  title  page  of  the  book,  con- 
tained the  author's  name,  but  on  the  page  following,  ap- 
pears a  letter  of  dedication  to  the  Right  Honorable  Henry 
Wriothesley,  Earl  of  Southampton,  whose  name  was  des- 
tined to  be  in  later  years,  so  frequently  connected  with 
that  of  the  actor-poet.  This  dedication  is  signed  William 
Shakespeare;  it  speaks  of  this  poem  as  the  first  "  heire" 
of  the  writer's  invention,  and  would  seem  to  imply  that 
there  was  no  previous  acquaintance  between  him  and 
Southampton,  then  a  youth  of  twenty,  who  had  already 
shown  a  marked  literary  taste  and  a  sympathy  for 
authors. 

It  has  been  contended  that  as  "Venus  and  Adonis" 
is  here  spoken  of  as  the  first  heir  of  the  author's  inven- 
tion, it  must  have  been  written  many  years  before, 
and  perhaps  have  been  brought  up  from  Stratford  to  Lon- 


17 

don,  because  these  critics  assume  that  the  poet  we  know  as 
Shakespeare  was  already  the  author  of  numerous  plays. 
But  of  this  there  is  no  adequate  evidence  and  the  diffi- 
culty is  self  made.  What  the  poet  had  done  as  far  as 
we  know  up  to  this  time,  had  been  only  the  repolishing, 
correction,  and  improvement  of  old  plays,  such  as  Henry 
VI.,  Titus  Andronicus,  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  possibly 
Love's  Labor  Lost.  There  is  no  evidence  of  anything  that 
he  himself  would  properly  call  invention,  so  that  there  is 
no  ground  for  thinking  "Venus  and  Adonis"  may  not 
have  been  written  in  1592  or  1593,  when  Shakespeare  was 
twenty-eight  or  twenty-nine  years  old,  and  had  been 
probably  eight  years  at  least  away  from  Stratford.  The 
poem  won  immediate  favor  and  popularity.  Richard 
Field  brought  out  a  second  edition  in  1594;  on  the  25  th 
of  Jtme,  1594,  he  assigned  the  copyright  to  Mr.  Harrison, 
Sr.,  who  brought  out  a  third  edition,  printed  by  R.  F.  for 
John  Harrison  in  1596. 

Harrison  was  the  first  publisher  of  the  "  Ravyshment 
of  Lucrece,"  which  was  entered  in  the  Stationers'  Reg- 
istry May  9th,  1594,  and  printed  later  in  the  year  by 
Richard  Field  for  John  Harrison.  "  Lucrece"  also  bore 
no  author's  name,  but  was  dedicated  by  the  writer, 
William  Shakespeare,  to  the  Earl  of  Southampton.  The 
Earl  certainly  had  appreciated  "Venus  and  Adonis," 
for  this  second  dedication  thanks  him  for  his  encourage- 
ment: "The  warrant  I  have  of  your  Honourable  Disposi- 
tion," &c.  "" 

Harrison  was  no  doubt  a  stronger  publisher,  with  more 
capital  than  Richard  Field,  but  the  printing  was  left  in 
the  hands  of  the  poet's  early  friend. 

"  Lucrece  "  was  as  successful  as  "  Venus  and  Adonis," 
and  numerous  editions  of  both  were  produced  during  the 
ensuing  years.  "  The  Rape  of  Lucrece  "  is  highly  praised 
in  the  commendatory  verses  prefixed  to  a  little  book 
called  "  Willobie  his  Avisa,"  which  was  published  in  the 


i8 

same   year    1594,    and   Shakespeare  is  named   as   the 
author  : — 

"  In  Lavine  Land  though  Livie  host 

There  hath  beene  seene  a  Constant  dame: 
Though  Rome  lament  that  she  have  lost 
The  Gareland  of  her  rarest  fame, 
Yet  now  we  see,  that  here  is  found, 
As  great  a  Faith  in  English  ground. 

"  Though  Collatine  have  deerely  bought, 
To  high  renowne,  a  lasting  life, 
And  found,  that  most  in  vaine  have  fought, 
To  have  a  Faire  and  Constant  wife, 
Yet  Tarquyne  pluckt  his  glistering  grape. 
And  Shake-speare,  paints  poore  Lucrece  rape." 

Willobie,  whose  personaHty  is  a  Httle  doubtful,  is  said 
to  have  been  a  native  of  Wiltshire,  bom  in  1574,  who 
graduated  from  Exeter  College,  Oxford,  in  1594;  he 
therefore  would  seem  to  have  just  come  up  from  Oxford  at 
the  age  of  twenty  when  his  book  was  produced  in  Sep- 
tember, 1594.  He  is  said  to  have  gone  abroad  on  her 
Majesty's  service  and  died  in  1596. 

But  this  little  book  of  Henry  Willobie  contains  another 
probable  allusion  which  may  have  even  greater  interest. 
Cantos  44  to  47  of  the  poem,  inclusive,  are  occupied  by 
a  dialogue  between  Willobie  himself  under  the  initials 
"  H.  W.,"  and  an  older  friend,  *'  W.  S.,"  whom  he  speaks 
of  in  the  preface  as  an  old  player  of  whom  the  new  actor 
seeks  counsel,  and  **  W.  S."  proceeds  to  advise  "  H.  W." 
very  ingeniously  as  to  the  prosecution  of  his  suit  to 
Avisa.  It  will  be  noted  that  it  was  one  ''W.  H."  to 
whom  the  sonnets  were  dedicated,  a  younger  friend  of 
the  poet,  while  here  a  younger  man  "  H.  W.,"  styling 
himself  "  Henrico  Willobego-Hispalensis,"  addresses  the 
older  "  W.  S."  as  his  "  familiar  friend  who  had  tryed  the 
curtesy  of  the  like  passion  and  was  now  nearly  recov- 
ered," and  this  familiar  friend  is  clearly  an  actor  and 
a  man   experienced  in  love.\  Without   undertaking  to 


< 


19 

trace  "  H.  W."  with  certainty,  it  is  certainly  a  highly 
plausible  conjecture  that  Shakespeare,  who  had  been 
mentioned  in  the  prefixed  commendatory  verses  and 
whose  published  poems  were  distinctly  amatpry  in  char- 
acter, may  have  been  the  "  W.  S."  meant.  /  In  the  same 
year  1594  Michael  Drayton,  the  well-knowtr  contempo- 
rary poetj  mentions  the  revival  of  the  "  Legend  of 
Lucrece."!  Drayton  certainly  knew  Shakespeare,  for  in 
his  collected  poems  (edition  of  1627),  Shakespeare's 
comic  vein  is  praised  as  well  as  his  tragic  rage;  the 
verses  also,  I  think,  contain  a  distinct  allusion  to  the 
poet  having  been  an  actor: — 

' '  Shakespeare  thou  hadst  as  smooth  a  comicke  vaine 
Fitting  the  sock,  and  in  thy  natural  brain 
As  strong  conception,  and  as  clear  a  rage, 
As  any  one  that  trafiqued  with  the  stage." 

This  citation  is  somewhat  out  of  time,  but  it  is  better 
to  anticipate  so  as  to  collocate  it  with  the  same  writer's 
earlier  reference  in  1594.  I  may  add  that  Drayton's 
reputation  for  truth  and  integrity  was  very  high. 
/  In  the  next  year,  1595,  in  his  little  book,  *' Poli- 
mantcia,"  William  Clarke,  in  his  appreciation  of  various 
writers,  ancient  and  modem,  puts  in  the  margin  of  his 
page,  **A11  praise  worthy  Lucretia,"  "Sweet  Shakes- 
peare," and  later  in  the  same  marginal  column,  'Wanton 
Adonis."  Perhaps  the  place  in  the  margin  was  due  to 
the  then  very  recent  publication  of  the  poems.  Fol- 
lowing Lucrece's  name  is  that  of  "  Gaviston,"  the  famous 
poem  of  Michael  Drayton,  to  whom  we  have  just  referred. 
In  1596  Richard  Carew,  in  his  '*  Excellence  of  the  English 
Tongue,"  compares  Shakespeare  to  Catullus. 

Meanwhile  Titus  Andronicus  and  the  first  part  of  the 
Contention  between  the  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster  had 
been  pubHshed  in  1594.  The  name  of  Shakespeare  did 
not  appear,  however,  either  in  the  copyright  entries 
or  the  title  pages. 


This  was  also  the  case  with  the  quarto  of  the  *True 
Tragedie  of  Richard  Duke  of  York,  which  appeared  in 

1595.  The  editions  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  pubHshed  in 

1596,  and  of  Richard  11.  and  III.,  published  in  1597, 
lacked  also  the  author's  name. 

Notwithstanding  the  omission,  the  Shakespearean  au- 
thorship of  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  Richard  III.  at  least 
seems  to  have  been  early  recognized,  probably  before 
they  were  printed  at  all. 

John  Weever,  in  his  little  book  called  "  Epigrammes 
in  the  Oldest  Cut  and  Newest  Fashion,"  published  in 
1599,  has  a  sonnet  addressed  "Ad  Gulielmum  Shakes- 
peare," which  greets  him  as  the  author  not  only  of 
Venus  and  Adonis,  but  of  Romeo  and  Richard  and 
other  poems,  and  urges  him  to  beget  more  such 
lovely  literary  children.  Weever  says  that  these  poems 
of  his  were  written  by  him  before  he  reached  twenty: 
"that  twenty  twelve  months  yet  did  never  know." 
From  the  known  age  of  his  birth  this  must  have  been 
not  later  than  1596,  and  this  epigram  or  sonnet,  which 
is  not  without  beauty,  seems  therefore  fairly  attribut- 
able to  about  that  time: — 

"  Honie-tong'd  Shakespeare,  when  I  saw  thine  issue, 

I  swore  Apollo  got  them  and  none  other, 
Their  rosie-tainted  features  cloth'd  in  tissue, 

Some  heaven  born  goddesse  said  to  be  their  mother ; 
Rose-checkt  Adonis  with  his  amber  tresses,  (cheeked) 

Faire  fire-hot  Venus  charming  him  to  love  her. 
Chaste  Lucretia  virgine-like  her  dresses, 

Prowd  lust-stung  Tarquine  seeking  still  to  prove  her: 
Romea-Richard ;  more,  whose  names  I  know  not,  (Romeo) 

Their  sugred  tongues,  and  power  attractive  beuty 
Say  they  are  Saints,  although  that  Sts  they  shew  not 

For  thousands  vowes  to  them  subjective  dutie: 
They  burn  in  love  thy  childre  Shakespear  het  the,  (heated) 

Go,  wo  thy  Muse  more  Nymphish  brood  beget  them." 

Weever' s  sonnet  seems  to  show  that  Shakespeare 
was  recognized  as  the  author  not  only  of  "Venus  and 
Adonis"  and  "Lucrece,"  but  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  at  , 


21 

least  one  of  the  Richards,  at  the  time  of  their  produc- 
tion on  the  stage,  and  further,  I  think,  shows  a  fine  criti- 
cal appreciation  of  the  fiery  heat,  with  which  Shakes- 
peare's creation  of  his  characters  was  accomplished. 
Weever  was  also  the  author  of  the  "  Mirror  for  Martyrs, 
or  the  Life  and  Death  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle  1602," 
which  indicates  a  possible  connection  between  him  and 
Shakespeare.  It  was  one  of  the  books  written  to 
vindicate  Oldcastle  from  the  character  given  him  in  the 
first  version  of  Henry  IV. ^  where  he  originally  took  the 
place  of  Falstaff.  In  this  book  of  poems  we  also  find 
admiring  reference  to  the  play  we  know  as  Shakes- 
peare's, Julius  CoBsar,  with  which  Weever  was  evidently 
familiar. 

The  first  occasion  where  Shakespeare's  name  appears 
on  the  title  page  of  one  of  the  plays,  is  in  the  quarto  of 
Love's  Labor  Lost,  **  a  pleasant  conceited  Comedie  as  it 
was  .presented  before  her  Highness  last  Christmas. 
Newly  corrected  and  augmented  by  William  Shakes- 
peare." The  date  of  this  publication  is  1598,  so  it  was 
doubtless  played  Christmas,  1597.  The  title  page  shows 
it  was  an  old  play,  and  possibly,  also  indicates  that  Shakes- 
peare did  not  claim  to  be  the  original  author,  but  only  to 
be  its  corrector  and  augmenter.  In  the  same  year  Francis 
Meres  produced  his  *'  Palladis  Tamia,"  or  "Wit's  Treas- 
ury," being  the  second  part  of  *' Wit's  Commonwealth." 
In  this  book  Meres  speaks  of  Shakespeare  and  his  writ- 
ings no  less  than  five  times.  In  the  most  celebrated 
passage,  after  comparing  other  contemporary  writers  to 
classic  Greek  and  Latin  prototypes,  he  proceeds  to  praise 
Shakespeare  for  his  poems,  in  which  he  declares  the 
sweet,  witty  soul  of  Ovid  lives;  for  his  comedies,  which 
he  compares  to  those  of  Plautus  and  Seneca,  and  also 
for  his  tragedies.     This  is  the  passage: — 

"As  the  foule  of  Euphorbus  was  thought  to  live  in 
Pythagoras;  so  the  sweete  wittie  foule  of  Ovid  lives  in 


22 

mellifluous  &  Hony-tongued  Shakespeare,  witnes  his 
Venus  and  Adonis,  his  Lucrece,  his  sugred  Sonnets 
among  his  private  friends,  &c. 

"As  Plautus  and  Seneca  are  accounted  the  best  for 
Comedy  and  Tragedy  among  the  Latines  so  Shakes- 
peare among  ye  English,  is  the  most  excellent  in  both 
kinds  for  the  stage ;  for  Comedy,  witnes  his  Gentlemen 
of  Verona,  his  Love  labors  lost,  his  Love  labours  wonne, 
his  Midsummers  night  dreame  &  his  Merchant  of  Venice : 
for  Tragedy  his  Richard  the  2,  Richard  the  3,  Henry 
the  4.  King  lohn,  Titus  Andronicus  and  his  Romeo  and 
luliet. 

"As  Epius  Stolo  said,  that  the  Muses  would  speake 
with  Plautus  Tongue,  if  they  would  speak  Latin;  so  I 
say  that  the  Muses  would  speak  with  Shakespears  fine 
filed  phrase,  if  they  would  speak  English." 

Meres  was  but  little  yoimger  than  Shakespeare,  having 
been  bom  in  Kenton,  Lincolnshire,  1565.  He  received 
his  Bachelor's  degree  at  Cambridge,  1587,  and  proceeded 
Master  of  Arts,  1591.  He  then  seems  to  have  gone  to 
Oxford,  where  also  he  received  a  Master's  degree,  1593, 
thus  coming  within  the  radius  of  Shakespearean  recogni- 
tion, for  William  Shakespeare  the  actor  was,  according  to 
tradition,  well  known  in  Oxford,  which  he  passed  through 
on  his  trips  between  London  and  Stratford,  while 
we  have  no  knowledge  of  his  being  personally  known 
in  Cambridge,  fin  1597  Meres  was  settled  in  London, 
living  in  St.  B6tolph's  Lane,  and  describing  himself  as 
Master  of  Arts  of  both  universities,  and*  student  of 
divinity,  but  giving  much  attention  to  English  litera- 
ture. He  seems  to  have  resided  in  London  until  1602, 
when  he  received  the  living  of  Wing,  in  Rutlandshire, 
where  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  long  life,  surviving  until 
1642.  His  stay  in  Oxford,  and  subsequent  literary  life 
in  London,  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  knowing  all 
there  was  to  be  known,  about  the  actor  Shakespeare 
in  1598. 


23 

We  observe  he  mentions  among  the  comedies,  besides 
Love's  Labor  Lost;  The  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  Comedy  of 
Errors,  Midsummer's  Night  Dream,  and  the  Merchant  of 
Venice,  none  of  which  had  been  printed  at  all  up  to  that 
time,  and  which  must,  therefore,  have  been  known  as 
Shakespeare's  as  acted  on  the  stage;  and  Love's  Labor 
Won,  a  play  which  has  either  been  lost  or  is  known  by 
another  name,  perhaps  As  You  Like  It,  or  All's  Well 
that  Ends  W^,  or,  more  likely  than  any  other,  The 
Taming  of  the  Shrew.  Among  tragedies  he  mentions 
King  John,  which  was  not  printed  imtil  1611,  besides 
Richard  IL  and  IIL,  Titus  Andronicus,  and  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  previously  published  anonymously,  sxid  Henry  IV., 
which  was  first  published  in  the  same  year,  but  had 
been  produced  on  the  stage  a  year  or  two  earlier.  It 
is  also  interesting  to  note  the  first  reference  in  literature 
to  the  sonnets  (which  were  not  pubHshed  until  1609). 
Meres  speaks  of  them  as  his  "sugred  sonnets  among  his 
private  friends."  This  shows  a  distinctly  personal  circula- 
tion, from  hand  to  hand,  among  persons  who  knew  the 
author  and  each  other,  and  to  my  mind  contradicts  the 
possibility  of  their  having  been  by  another  hand,  who 
borrowed  Shakespeare's  name.  In  concluding  the  reference 
to  Meres,  let  us  note  his  appreciation  of  Shakespeare's 
style,  his  "fine  filed  phrase  which  the  Muses  would  use 
if  they  spoke  English."  Certainly  in  the  society  of  a 
little  city  like  London  then  was,  a  writer  like  Meres, 
who  knew  and  stated  the  reputed  authorship,  of  so  many 
of  the  plays  which  were  not  yet  published,  and  who 
knew  of  the  private  circulation  of  the  sonnets  attributed 
to  the  actor  Shakespeare,  (which  had  the  same  honied 
sweetness  as  his  recognized  poems,  dedicated  to  one  of 
these  friends,  the  brilliant  young  Southampton),  would 
certainly  have  been  aware  of  the  fact,  if  it  had  been  a 
fact,  that  the  actor's  personality  and  lack  of  education, 
were   such,   as  to  present  an  incongruity  in   his  being 


24 

the  master  of  the  fine  filed  phrase  Meres  lauded  so 
highly. 

In  the  same  year  1598  Richard  Bamfield,  in  his  poems 
in  "Divers  Humors"  (it  was  a  year  remarkable  for 
humors),  commemorates  Shakespeare  as  the  author  of 
**  Venus  and  Adonis"  and  *' Lucrece,"  together  with 
Spenser,  Daniell,  and  Drayton,  and  prophesies  eternal 
fame  to  their  productions. 

About  the  same  year,  or  possibly  a  year  or  two  later, 
Gabriel  Harvey  made  the  celebrated  note  in  manuscript 
m  a  copy  of  Specht's  Horace,  published  in  1598.  Un- 
happily, the  volume  containing  this  note,  which  both 
Steevens  and  Malone  examined,  was  destroyed  by  fire 
with  the  rest  of  Bishop  Percy's  library  in  the  burning 
of  Northumberland  House.  The  note  reads:  "The 
younger  sort  take  much  delight  in  Shakespeare's  Venus 
&  Adonis,  but  his  Lucrece  and  his  tragedy  of  Hamlet 
Prince  of  Denmark  have  it  in  them  to  please  the  wiser 
sort." 

**  Venus  and  Adonis"  was  treated  and  classed  as  dis- 
tinctly an  erotic  book  in  those  days,  as  shown  by  many 
allusions  to  its  secret  perusal  by  youth  of  both  sexes, 
and  Shakespeare  was  gravely  reprehended  by  strict 
moralists  for  its  license;  but  it  is  interesting  to  find 
"  Lucrece  "  distinguished  from  its  companion  and  classed 
as  a  moral  poem,  with  **  Hamlet."  It  is  also  interesting 
to  see  that  Harvey  accepted  "  Hamlet"  as  undoubtedly 
by  the  same  author  as  the  poems. 

In  this  same  year  1598  appeared  John  Marston's  well- 
known  "  Scourge  of  Villainie."  Two  of  the  "  satyres," 
the  seventh  and  tenth,  seem  to  contain  references  to 
Shakespeare  and  his  productions.  ^The  passage  in  the 
seventh  seems  to  burlesque  both  Richard  III.  and  Timon 
of  Athens: — 

"A  man,  a  man,  a  kingdom  for  a  man 
Why  how  now  currish  mad  Athenian 
Thou  cynick  dogge,  see'st  not  the  streets  do  swarm 
With  men." 


25 

It  might  be  supposed  the  allusion  was  only  to  Diogenes, 
but  that  the  phrase,  "mad  Athenian,"  would  seem  to 
imply  a  reference  to  Timon.  If  this  conjecture  is  sotmd, 
there  must  have  been  an  earlier  production,  of  some 
form  of  the  play,  than  any  of  which  we  have  record. 
But  the  reference  in  the  tenth  satire  is  much  more  in- 
teresting.    It  begins: — 

"A  hall,  a  hall, 
Roome  for  the  Spheres,  the  Orbes  celestial 
Will  daunce  Kemps  Jigge.    They'le  revel  with  neate  lumps 
A  worthy  Poet  hath  put  on  their  Pumps. 

Luscus,  what's  played  to  day  ?  faith  now  I  know 
I  set  thy  lips  abroach,  from  whence  doth  flow 
Naught  but  pure  luliet  and  Romio. 
Say,  who  acts  best?    Drusus  or  Roscio? 
Now  I  have  him,  that  nere  of  ought  did  speake 
But  when  of  playes  or  Plaiers  he  did  treate. 
H'ath  made  a  common-place  booke  out  of  plaies, 
And  speaks  in  print  at  least  what  ere  he  sayes 
Is  warranted  by  Curtaine  plaudeties." 

Besides  the  opening  quotation  from  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
and  the  distinct  reference  to  that  play,  we  have  the 
allusion  to  Roscius  and  another  actor,  Drusus.  There 
seems  also  to  me,  at  least  an  intimation  of  a  con- 
nection between  the  writing  and  acting  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  and  a  certainty  that  Marston  was  quite  familiar 
with  the  circumstances  of  the  production  of  that 
tragedy.  The  language  is  indeed  obscure,  but  is  there 
not  a  relation  implied  between  the  worthy  poet  who 
put  on  the  pumps  of  the  "orbes  celestial"  in  order 
that  they  might  dance  "  Kempe's  jigge"  and  Drusus 
and  Roscius  ?  The  worthy  poet  is,  I  think,  evidently 
the  author  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  produced  at  the  Curtain. 
In  1604,  we  find  Marston  in  a  later  poem  copying^ 
a  passage  from  Hamlet,  and  in  1607  one  from  Richard 
III.  in  his  "What  You  Will." 

It  is   interesting  to   collate  the  references  made  to 


26 

Shakespeare  by  John  Marston  with  those  made  a  year  or 
two  later  by  John  Davies,  of  Hereford.  This  gentleman, 
a  writing  master  by  occupation,  was  living  at  Magdalen 
College,  Oxford,  during  the  first  years  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  I  have  remarked  on  Marston 's  mention  in 
connection  with  Romeo  and  Juliet,  of  two  actors  besides 
Kempe — Roscio  and  Drusus — and  Marston  asks  his  inter- 
locutor which  is  the  better  of  these  two.  We  know  with 
reasonable  certainty  that  in  the  literature  of  the  day 
Roscio  always  meant  Burbage,  but  we  have  no  other 
allusion  that  I  know  of  to  Drusus  as  an  actor ;  but  in  view 
of  the  constant  association  of  Burbage  and  Shakespeare, 
and  Kempe  having  been  already  named,  it  is  at  least 
probable  that  Shakespeare  maybe  meant  both  by  Drusus, 
and  as  the  putter  on  of  the  pumps  for  the  dancing  orbs. 
And  this  conjecture  is,  I  think,  vastly  strengthened  when 
we  find  Davies  in  his  **Microcosmus,"  1603,  addressing 
the  players,  particularly  praising  two,  both  for  their 
intellectual  and  moral  merits,  whom  he  designates  in  the 
margin  of  his  notes  as  '*R.  B."  or  *'W.  S.,"  and  adding 
as  a  final  note  the  remark  that  Roscius  was  said  for  his 
excellence  in  his  quality,  to  be  only  worthie  to  come  on 
the  stage,  and  for  his  honesty  to  be  more  worthy  than 
to  come  on  it.  His  Roscius,  equivalent  to  Roscio  is 
clearly  '*R.  B.,"  or  Richard  Burbage,  while  Shakes- 
peare's initials  alone  are  given  without  any  reference  to 
any  stage  name,  so  that  if  Marston  meant  Drusus  (who 
probably  played  Mercutio  to  Burbage's  Romeo)  for 
Shakespeare,  the  nickname  did  not  last  like  Roscius  did 
for  Burbage.     The  lines  are  as  follows: — 

'*  Players,  I  love  yee,  and  your  Qualitie, 

c    As  ye  are  Men,  that  pass  time  not  abus'd: 

d    And  some  I  love  for  painting,  poesie, 
And  say  fell  Fortune  cannot  be  excus'd, 
That  hath  for  better  uses  you  refus'd: 
Wit,  Courage,  good  shape,  good  partes,  and  all  good, 
As  long  as  all  these  goods  are  no  worse  us'd, 
And  though  the  stage  doth  staine  pure  gentle  bloud, 
Yet  generous  yee  are  in  minde  and  moode." 


27 

The  marginal  notes  are  to  line  2  the  initials  "R.  B. 
W.  vS. "  (evidently  meaning  Richard  Burbage  and  William 
Shakespeare),  and  to  line  3:  ''Simonides  saith  that 
painting  is  a  dumb  poesy  &  poesy  a  speaking  paint- 
ing." 

Davies  here,  as  will  be  seen,  fully  recognized  the  loss 
of  social  position  which  the  profession  of  an  actor  in- 
volved, but  excepts  from  the  common  condemnation  two 
actors,  *'R.  B."  and  "W.  S.,"  whom  he  says  he  loves, 
and  whom  he  praises  as  not  only  eminent  in  their  profes- 
sion as  actors,  but  who  had  made  good  use  of  their  leisure 
hours  in  the  cultivation  of  the  arts,  the  one  of  painting 
and  the  other  of  poetry,  and  who  possessed  also  the 
natural  advantages  of  wit,  courage,  good  shape,  good 
parts,  and  the  noble  moral  trait  of  generosity  in  mind 
and  disposition.  He  blames  fortune  for  having  placed 
such  noble  natures  in  soTinfortunate  a  situation. 

Burbage  was  almost  as  well  known  in  those  days  as  a 
painter  as  Shakespeare  in  ours  as  a  poet.  This  is  proved 
as  well  by  frequent  references  by  contemporaries  as  by 
pictures  by  his  hand  still  extant.  There  is  therefore  not 
the  slightest  doubt  that  Burbage  and  Shakespeare  are 
the  actors  referred  to  and  that  Shakespeare  is  the  actor- 
poet  praised  by  John  Davies.  . 

I  have  elsewhere  discussed  in  greater  detail  this  old 
writing  teacher /^ttie  most  skillful  penman  of  his^'dayT^and 
his  probable  relation  to  Shakespeare,  so  I  will  onlymiefiy 
allude  to  his  career  and  writings.  ^A  native  of  Hereford, 
a  town  lying  westward  of  Stratford  and  closer  to  the 
Welsh  border,  so  that  his  route  to  London,  like  Shakes- 
peare's, lay  through  Oxford — he  was  four  years  Shakes- 
^^.peare's  junior  and  survived  him  about  two  years.  *"! 
I  Davies  seems  to  have  halted  on  his  way  ta  L6ndon 
and  to  have  tarried  at  Oxford  for  about  ten  years  ending 
in  1608,  when  he  received  the  living  of  St.  Dunstan's  the 
Less,  and  from  that  time  until  his  death  in  16 18  lived  in 


28 

St.  Martin's  Lane,  near  that  church.  There  is  no  record 
of  his  graduation  at  Oxford,  but  Wood  says  he  was 
educated  there,  and  Burkitt  in  1635  calles  him  Oxoniae 
Vates.  One  of  his  poems  was  an  address  to  the  University, 
which  he  styled  his  "honoured  and  entirely  beloved 
Patronesse,"  and  two  of  his  sonnets  are  in  praise 
of  Magdalen  College.  '  He  certainly  resided  at  Magdalen 
for  many  years,  during  which  he  remained  unmarried, 
and  this  fact,  coupled  with  that  of  his  marriage  im- 
mediately on  receiving  the  living  of  St.  Dunstan's,  would 
fook  as  if  he  were  a  fellow  of  that  College. 

He  was  the  most  renowned  penman  of  the  day  and 
taught  the  art  of  writing  to  the  nobility  and  gentry  of 
both  sexes.  ■  Among  his  patrons  and  pupils  were  Prince 
Henry  of  Wales  (Charles  I's  elder  brother),  Shakespeare's 
patron  William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  his 
family,  Edmund  Herbert  of  Montgomery,  afterwards 
Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Sir  Robert  Sidney,  the  Earl 
of  Northumberland,  and  his  daughters,  Ladies  Dorothy 
and  Mary  Percy,  and  the  Cotmtess  of  Derby  and  her 
daughters.     / 

Davies  appears  to  have  been  a  worthy  and  respect- 
able person,  of  a  studious  and  industrious  disposition, 
who  assiduously  cultivated  the  patronge  of  the  rich  and 
great,  by  whose  aid  he  eked  out  rather  a  narrow  liveli- 

rod  imtil  he  received  the  living  of  St.  Dunstan's. 
We  know  Hamlet  was  acted  in  Oxford  very  early  in 
the  seventeenth  century  by  the  Globe  Company,  and 
that  Shakespeare  often  stopped^  at  Oxford  on  his  way 
between  London  and  Stratford.  :  Davenant's  inn.  The 
Crown,  where  Shakespeare  stopped,  was  a  very  respect- 
able place  of  entertainment,  as  well  as  one  noted  for  the 
excellence  of  its  cellar,  and  John  Davenant  was  a  reputable 
citizen  of  grave  demeanor  and  ^-serious  character.  His 
inn  was  therefore  a  place,  where!  Davies  might  very  well 
meet,  and  become  well  acquainted  with  Shakespeare  and 


29 

Burbage,  and  in  Hamlet  he  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing 
Burbage  as  the  Prince  of  Denmark,  and  Shakespeare  as 
his  father's  spirit.  When,  therefore,  Da  vies  tells  us  that 
both  these  actors  were  men  too  good  for  their  calling,  and 
eminent,  apart  from  their  merits  as  actors,  the  one  for 
his  painting,  the  other  for  his  poesy,  he  doubtless  knew 
whereof  he  spoke,  and  we  have  abundant  evidence,  that 
he  was  entirely  right  as  to  Burbage  being  an  artist.  Why 
should  we  hesitate  to  accept  the  facts  which  he  states 
about  Shakespeare,  that  he  was  not  only  an  excellent 
actor,  but  a  poet,  a  gentleman,  and  a  scholar,  hand- 
some in  person,  witty,  generous,  and  courageous  in 
character?  .^..^ 

Eminent  as  he  was  as  a  penman  and  writing  master, 
it  could' "hardly  have  escaped  Davies'  notice,  if  Shakes- 
*-^eare  had  been  a  vulgar,  uneducated  clown  hardly  able 
to  write  his  name.  He  could  have  had  no  motive  for 
falsehood  or  exaggeration,  in  praise  of  one  belonging  to 
the  despised  calling  of  an  actor ;  on  the  contrary,  situated 
as  he  was,  dependent  on  the  patronage  of  the  great  and 
noble,  and  particularly  of  noble  ladies  and  their  daughters, 
he  would  hardly  have  ventured  on  such  praise  of  "  R.  B.** 
and  "  W  S."  unless  he  felt  he  was  putting  in  print  what 
his  iwble  patrons  agreed  with,  and  would  read  with  pleas- 


ure, JO  that  the  opinion  of  the  public  which  Davies  a^ 
"dressed,  and  which  he  probably  reflected,  is  more  im- 
portant evidence  for  us  than  even  his  own  view.  Nor 
was  this  expression  of  Davies,  in  his  "  Microcosm,"  a  mere 
passing  sentiment  based  on  a  hasty  impulse;  it  was  his 
matured  and  settled  conviction.  'Two  years  later,  in 
1605,  this  volimiinous  writer  published  his  "Civil  Wars  of 
Death  and  Fortune."  We  find  in  this  poem  another 
eight-line  stanza  in  which  Davies  is  particularly  occupied 
in  condemning  the  ill  deeds  and  rude  behavior  of  certain 
actors ;  but  he  was  most  careful  to  except  from  this  cen- 
sure his   two   old  friends,    Burbage    and    Shakespeare, 


30 

whom  he  again  distinguishes  by  their  initials  **R.  B."" 
and  "  W.  S. "  in  the  margin : — 

"  Some  followed  her  by  acting  all  mens  parts, 

These  on  a  Stage  she  rais'd  (in  scorne)  to  fall: 
And  made  them  Mirrors,  by  their  acting  Arts, 
Wherin  men  saw  their  faults,  though  ne'r  so  small: 
"  W.S.  R.B."  Yet  some  she  guerdond  not,  to  their  desarts; 

But,  othersome,  were  ill-Actioned  all. 
'  Who  while  they  acted  ill,  ill  staid  behinde, 
(By  custome  of  their  maners)  in  their  minde." 

"  Stage  plaiers 

Showing  the  vices  of  the  time." 


It  is  somewhat  curious  to  note  Davies'  close  connection 
of  the  moral  qualities  of  the  players  with  the  merits  of 
their  performance,  but  the  great  interest  of  the  passage 
is  in  its  demonstration  of  his  sincere  regard  for  Bur- 
bage  and  Shakespeare,  whom  he  could  not  let  it  be  sup- 
posed were  included  in  his  condemnation.  I  think  also 
no  one  can  doubt  that  the  writer  of  this  stanza  was  quite 
familiar  with  Hamlet's  advice  to  the  players,  and  the  hold- 
ing of  a  mirror  up  to  nature. 

Still  later,  and  after  he  was  settled  in  London  as  parson 
of  St.  Dunstan's,  Davies  produced  in  1611  the  ''Scourge 
of  Folly,  consisting  of  Satyricall  epigrams,  and  others  in 
honour,  of  many  noble  and  worthy  persons  in  our  land." 
In  this  collection  are  included  epigrams  and  stanzas 
addressed  to  Daniel,  Ben  Jonson,  Marston,  Fletcher,  and 
other  well-known  contemporary  writers.  Among  these 
we  find  another  eight-line  stanza  addressed  "to  our 
English  Terence  Mr.  Will  Shakespeare."  The  address 
is  interesting  as  showing  that  it  referred  to  the  dramatist 
Shakespeare,  whom  ]\Jeres  had  twelve  years  previously 
compared  to  Terence, Vwhile  the  abbreviation  "Will" 
necessarily  suggests  to  us  certain  of  the  sonnets,  and 
implies  personal  intimacy.     This  is   confirmed  by  the 


31 

first  line,  in  which  Shakespeare  is  called,  as  will  be  seen, 
" Good  Will."     Here  is  the  epigram: — 

"  Some  say  (good  Will)  which  I,  in  sport,  do  sing, 
Had'st  thou  not  plaid  some  Kingly  parts  in  sport, 
Thou  hadst  bin  a  companion  for  a  King  ; 
>r     •<     /  And,  beene  a  King  among  the  meaner  sort. 

C    f      S/      Some  others  raile  ;  but,  raile  as  they  thinke  fit, 
Thou  hast  no  rayling,  but,  a  raigning  Wit : 

And  honesty  thou  sow'st,  which  they  do  reape  ; 
So,  to  increase  their  stocke  which  they  do  keepe." 

This  stanza  is  not  easy  of  interpretation.  )  We  have 
first  a  renewed  recognition  of  the  social  inferiority,  result- 
ing from  Shakespeare's  being  a  player,  deplored  in  the 
earlier  poems,  which  prevented  his  taking  the  place  to 
which  his  merits  would  else  have  entitled  him,  of  a  com- 
panion of  kings  and  a  king  among  other  folks ;  and  a  re- 
gret that  his  very  playing  of  certain  kingly  parts  had 
rendered  this  "impossible.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  we 
may  learn  from  this  that  Shakespeare  may  perhaps  have 
played  Richard  II.  or  other  kingly  parts  which  directly 
tended  to  blight  his  personal  career.  Then  the  epigram- 
matist distinguishes  Shakespeare's  lambent,  happy  humor, 
which  he  compliments  as  reigning  wit,  from  the  railing 
wit  of  his  contemporaries  (probably  Ben  Jonson),  which 
he  condemns.  But  the  two  last  lines  are  the  most 
difHcult. 

Davies  compliments  Shakespeare's  honesty,  of  which, 
however,  others  reap  the  fruit  so  as  to  increase  their  store. 
What  could  it  be  Shakespeare  sowed  except  the  product 
of  his  brain,  which  he  honestly  surrendered,  according  to 
the  law  and  custom  of  the  time,  to  the  proprietors,  of 
the  Theatre,  who  appropriated  it  to  augment  their  store 
of  dramas  ?  Thus  Shakespeare  honestly  forbearing  to  try 
to  print  his  plays  for  his  personal  benefit,  failed  to  reap 
the  benefit  either  to  purse  or  reputation  he  otherwise 
would,  while  the  Theatre  proprietors  held  the  plays 
fast  only  to  increase  their  stock.     If  my  interpretation 


I 
of  these  lines  is  correct,  Davies,  the  poet-actor's  friend, 
noted  at  the  time  what  has  been  the  subject  of  so  much 
comment  since,  of  Shakespeare's  apparent  carelessness 
as  to  the  manuscript,  &c.,  of  the  plays,  and  attributes  it 
to  Shakespeare's  honesty  and  the  grasping  covetousness 
of  the  proprietors  of  the  Theatre. 

Turning  back  from  i6i  i,  to  which  year  we  had  followed 
John  Davies  so  as  to  pursue  the  continuity  of  his  testi- 
mony, we  find  that  in  the  first  year  of  the  new  century, 
1 60 1  Robert  Chester  published  his  allegorical  poem  which 
he  called  **  Love's  Martyr,"  to  which  he  added  several,  or, 
as  he  called  them,  *'  Divers  Poetical  Epistles  on  the  former 
subject;  (viz.  the  Turtle  and  Phenix)  done  by  the  best 
and  chiefest  of  our  modem  writers,  with  their  names 
subscribed  to  their  particular  works."  The  first  of  these 
poems  is  subscribed  *'  Vatum  Chorus,''  and  is  attributed 
to  Ben  Jonson ;  the  second  is  stated  to  be  by  an  unknown 
author;  the  third,  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  are  subscribed 
respectively  with  the  names  of  Shakespeare,  Marston, 
Chapman,  and  Ben  Jonson.  Shakespeare's  contribution 
to  the  series  is  the  poem  we  know  as  the  "Phenix  and 
Turtle." 

Such  a  collection  of  poems  by  different  authors  was  per- 
haps less  usual  in  those  days  than  it  would  be  at  present, 
but  it  has  in  it  nothing  surprising,  if  we  accept  the  fact 
that  Shakespeare,  Marston,  Chapman,  and  Ben  Jonson 
were  the  best  known  poets  of  the  day,  to  whom  recourse 
by  Chester  to  brighten  and  deck  out  his  book  was  nat- 
ural ;  but  it  would  be  a  very  startling  thing,  if  there  was 
no  poet  Shakespeare,  but  only  an  ignorant  actor,  that 
Chester  should  include  him  in  his  ''Vatum  Chorus,'*  and 
it  is  hard  to  imagine,  how  Chester  could  succeed  in  getting 
a  contribution  to  his  volume,  out  of  the  tmknown  and 
hidden  author,  who  is  claimed  to  have  masqueraded  be- 
hind the  name  of  Shakespeare,  or  how  the  other  three 
well-known  poets  could  be  satisfied  to  be  linked  with  a 
mere  simulacrum. 


That  the  ''Phenix  and  Turtle"  is  written  by  the  same 
hand  that  wrote  ** Venus  and  Adonis,"  the  "Rape  of 
Lucrece,"  and  the  sonnets  is  reasonably  clear;  further, 
the  intention  of  the  production  appears  to  have  been 
distinctly  political.  It  is  set  out  as  being  "  consecrated 
by  them  all  to  the  noble  knight  Sir  John  Salisburie,"  who 
like  Chester  himself  and  Shakespeare's  patron,  Southamp- 
ton, was  deep  in  the  Essex  Plot.  Therefore,  if  we  accept 
Shakespeare  as  the  author  of  his  own  poems  and  plays, 
his  joining  in  Chester's  enterprise  was  quite  natural ;  but 
it  would  be  strange  company  for  Bacon,  one  of  Elizabeth's 
most  trusted  and  apparently  devoted  cotmsellors. 

In  1603  Queen  Elizabeth  died.  Not  a  poem,  a  stanza, 
or  a  line  by  Shakespeare,  lamenting  her  death,  or  cele- 
brating her  glorious  reign,  appeared.  Contemporary  liter- 
ature is  full  of  appeals  to  Shakespeare  to  properly  remem- 
ber the  occasion  in  verse,  but  he  remained  obstinately 
silent.  This  was  most  natural  for  the  devoted  follower  and 
friend  of  Essex  and  Southampton,  trembling  perhaps  each 
hour  while  the  Queen  lived,  lest  he  should  be  called  to 
account  for  Richard  II.;  but  how  can  we  account  for 
Bacon's  silence  under  such  circumstances?  Even  if  he 
foimd  praising  his  dead  mistress  might  not  be  pleasing 
to  her  successor,  the  well-kept  secret  of  his  pseudonym 
would  have  enabled  him  without  danger,  to  have  de- 
scribed the  glories  of  the  great  Queen's  reign  and  lamented 
her  death.  In  his  own  person  he  wrote  the  well  known 
Latin  encomium  on  his  dead  mistress,  though  it  was  not 
published  until  later. 

In  1605  was  published  a  play  called  the  Return  from 
Parnassus,  by  an  imknown  author,  evidently,  however,  a 
Cambridge  man.  This  play  had  been  acted  at  Cambridge 
a  year  or  two  earlier.  In  the  early  portion  of  this  drama 
complimentary  reference  is  made  to  Shakespeare  as  the 
author  of  "Venus  and  Adonis"  and  "  Lucrece,"  but  later, 
in  the  fourth  act,  is  a  more  important  reference.  \  In  the 


34 

course  of  the  drama  certain  of  the  students  send  to  London 
for  Burbage  and  Kempe,  two  of  the  Globe  Company,  to 
instruct  them  in  the  art  of  acting,  and  a  dialogue  occurs 
between  these  actors  in  which,  after  some  clever  skits  at 
amateur  actors,  Kempe  says,  ''  Few  of  the  University  pen 
plays  well  *  *  *  ^  Why  here's  our  fellow  Shakes- 
peare puts  them  all  down;  aye,  and  Ben  Jonson  too.  O, 
that  Ben  Jonson  is  a  pestilente  fellow.  He  brought  up 
Horace  giving  the  poets  a  pill ;  but  our  fellow  Shakespeare 
hath  given  him  a  purge  that  made  him  bewray  his  credit." 
To  which  Burbage  answers,  "  It's  a  shrewd  fellow  indeed." 
As  I  have  elsewhere  argued,  this  passage  shows  that  even 
at  Cambridge  it  was  recognized  that  the  players  wrote 
better  acting  plays  than  the  University  men,  and  that 
William  Shakespeare,  the  fellow-actor  of  Burbage  and 
Kempe,  was  recognized  as  the  best  playwright  of  the 
day,  while  regarded  by  the  actors  as  strictly  their  fellow, 
which  Ben  Jonson  had  ceased  to  be.  Ben  Jonson 's  attack 
on  the  poets  and  actors  in  the  "Poetaster"  is  evidently 
alluded  to,  in  the  reference  to  Horace  giving  the  poets 
a  pill,  but  the  meaning  of  the  purge,  which  Shakespeare 
is  stated  to  have  given  to  Ben  Jonson,  is  more  obscure ; 
the  most  plausible  seems  to  me  to  be  the  suggestion  that 
Malvolio  in  Twelfth  Night  was  understood  to  be  a  cari- 
cature of  Jonson.  Severe  as  the  satire  might  seem  to  be, 
it  is  yet  laid  on  with  a  not  imloving  hand,  and  there 
appears  a  recognition  of  Malvolio' s  essential  worth, 
notwithstanding  his  absurdities.  Still  later  in  this  play 
we  find  one  of  the  actors  at  Burbage' s  desire  reciting 
f^  -pocoonro  from  Richavd  III. 
I  In  1604  appeared  Antony  Scolloker's  "Daiphantus;  or, 
the  Passions  of  Love."  In  his  preface,  telling  us  what  an 
epistle  to  the  reader  should  be,  Scolloker  writes:  "It 
should  be  like  the  Never-too-well  read  Arcadia,  where  the 
Prose  and  verce  (Matters  and  Words)  are  like  his  Mis- 
tresses eyes,  one  still  excelling  another  and  without  Co- 


35 

rivall:  or  to  come  home  to  the  vulgars  Element,  Hke 
Friendly  Shakespeare's  Tragedies,  where  the  Commedian 
rides,  when  the  Tragedian  stands  on  tip-toe:  Faith  it 
should  please  all,  like  Prince  Hamlet." 

It  is  a  singular  fact,  showing  on  how  small  a  chance  the 
perpetuation  of  knowledge  of  a  past  age  depends,  that  but 
one  copy  of  this  book  was  extant  imtil  it  was  reprinted  by 
the  Roxburgh  Club  in  1818.  The  original  copy  is  in  the 
Bodleian. 

We  gather  from  this  reference,  first,  that  he  whom 
Scolloker  calls  "Friendly  Shakespeare"  was  rather  the 
idol  of  the  multitude  than  of  the  cultivated  classes,  but 
that  his  moral  traits  of  friendship,  gentleness,  and  honesty 
were  imiversally  recognized.  No  one  can  doubt  but  that 
the  "Friendly  Shakespeare"  of  Scolloker,  "our  fellow 
Shakespeare"  of  the  Return  from  Parnassus,  and  Davies' 
"Goodwill  Shakespeare"  referred  to  the  same  lovable 
personality.  Second,  this  passage  shows  that  though  our 
poet  was  usually  the  vulgar's  element,  that  is  popular  with 
the  masses,  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  pleased  all,  according 
with  the  view  expressed  by  Gabriel  Harvey  in  his  manu- 
script note,  that  Hamlet  pleased  the  wiser  sort,  and  further 
confirmed  by  the  fact  that  Hamlet  is  the  only  one  of  the 
plays,  mentioned  on  the  quarto  title  pages,  as  having  been 
acted  at  the  imiversities."]  ScoUoker's  allusion  to  the 
introduction  of  the  comic  "element  by  Shakespeare  even 
into  his  tragedies  is  interestingj^J^r-was  probably  one  of 
the  modes  whereby  he  pleased  all. 

Let  us  next  take  up  Thomas  He3rwood,  a  dramatist  of 
much  power,  contemporary  with  Shakespeare's  later 
years,  and  whose  Woman  Killed  With  Kindness  is  one 
of  the  best  plays  of  the  age. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  Francis  Meres  spoke  in  1598  of 
Shakespeare's  "sugred"  sonnets  to  his  private  friends. 
The  sonnets  were  not  published  until  1609,  but  in  1597 
that    piratical    publisher,    William   Jaggard,   published 


36 

the  ''Passionate  Pilgrim,"  including  in  the  publication 
several  sonnets,  some  of  Shakespeare's  and  some  by- 
other  writers,  but  describing  all  as  Shakespeare's.  In 
1612  Jaggard  reprinted  the  ''Pilgrim"  and  sundry  other 
songs,  and  included  two  poems  of  Heywood,  the  Charm- 
ing Epistles  of  "Paris  to  Helen"  and  "Helen  to  Paris," 
calling  all  Shakespeare's.  This  excited  the  indignation 
of  both  Heywood  and  Shakespeare.  The  circumstances 
are  related  byHe3rwood  in  the  "Epistle  to  the  Printer," 
at  the  end  of  "An  Apology  for  Actors."  The  kindly 
manner  in  which  Heywood  speaks  of  Shakespeare's 
innocence  of  Jaggard' s  theft  is  interesting  as  showing 
how  Shakespeare's  honesty  was  by  this  time  generally 
recognized.  "  As  I  must  acknowledge  my  lines  not  worthy 
his  patronage,  imder  whom  he  hath  published  them,  so 
'  the  Author  I  know  much  offended  with  Mr.  Jaggard,  that 
(altogether  unknown  to  him)  presumed  to  make  bold 
with  his  name."  Certainly  it  would  have  been  a  surprise 
to  Heywood  "to  be  told  Shakespeare  was  not  the  author 
of  any  of  these  poems. 

We  have  an  earlier  reference  by  Heywood  to  "Venus 
and  Adonis"  in  1607,  and  in  1635,  nineteen  years  after 
Shakespeare's  death,  Heywood  makes  this  affectionate 
allusion  to  Will  Shakespeare  in  his  "Hierarchic  of  the 
Blessed  Angels": 

"Mellifluous  Shakespeare  whose  enchanting  quill 
Commanded  Mirth  or  Passion,  was  but  Will." 

Can  it  be  supposed  that  Heywood  during  these  many 
years  could  have  been  ignorant  of  the  fact,  had  it  been  a 
fact,  that  Will  Shakespeare  was  not  the  author  of  "  Venus 
and  Adonis,"  or  the  sonnets,  or  the  plays,  but  only  a 
figurehead?  r 

To  go  back  a  little;;  from  1598,  when  Love's  Labor 
Lost  was  first  printed  in  quarto  form  with  Shakespeare's 
name  on  the  title  page,  down  to  the  actor-poet's   death 


37 

in  1616,  there  appeared  bearing  William  Shakespeare's 
name  on  the  title  page,  thirty-one  editions  of  fourteen 
of  the  plays  we  now  know  as  Shakespeare's,  in  quarto 
form :  Love's  Labor  Lost,  Richard  IL,  Richard  IIL,  i  and  2 
Henry  IV.,  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,  Hamlet,  King  Lear,  Troilus  and  Cressida,  Peri- 
cles Prince  of  Tyre,  and  Romeo  and  Juliet.  Of  these 
Richard  IL  and  Richard  IIL,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  the 
two  parts  of  Henry  IV.  had  been  issued  without  an 
author's  name,  several  times  before  the  later  quartos, 
bearing  WilHam  Shakespeare's  name,  appeared;  while 
in  the  case  of  five  plays,  Titus  Andronicus,  Henry  V.,  and 
the  three  parts  of  Henry  VI.,  none  of  the  quartos  bear 
William  Shakespeare's  name. 

Both  Titus  Andronicus,  and  the  True  Tragedy  of 
Richard  Duke  of  York,  (the  old  name  of  3  Henry  F/.), 
were  stated  on  the  title  pages,  to.  have  been  acted  by  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke's  servants.  William  Herbert,  Earl 
of  Pembroke,  whom  we  know  as  Shakespeare's  patron 
and  one  of  the  sponsors  for  the  first  folio  was,  of  course 
too  yoimg  at  this  time  to  have  exercised  any  active 
patronage,  so  that  the  company  was  probably  tmder  the 
traditional  protection  of  the  family.  While  Henry  V., 
was  published  anonymously,  it  was  declared  to  be  by 
the  same  author,  in  the  Epilogue  to  2  Henry  7 F.,  which 
was  published  with  Shakespeare's  name;  the  contin- 
ued anonymous  publication  is  probably  to  be  accounted 
for  by  the  fact  that  the  later  quartos  were  virtually 
merely  reprints  of  the  earlier  ones.  The  rapid  increase  of 
the  number  of  editions  shows  Shakespeare's  growing  pop- 
ularity, which  is  also  confirmed  by  the  appearance  of 
three  of  the  doubtful  or  rejected  plays  with  Shakespeare's 
name  on  their  title  pages.  These  were  Sir  John  Oldcastle, 
the  Good  Lord  Cobham,  1600;  The  London  Prodigall,  1605  ; 
and  The  Yorkshire  Tragedy,  1608.     The  latter  is  much 


38 

the  most  meritorious  of  these  plays  and  has  much  som- 
bre force ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  beHeve  either  of  them 
Shakespeare's.  The  pubHcation  of  the  last  two  under 
his  name  was  probably  merely  for  the  sake  of  popularity ; 
but  that  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle  involves  a  curious'  story. 
It  is  known  both  by  contemporaneous  remark,  and  by 
internal  vestiges  which  revision  failed  to  remove,  that 
in  the  original  Henry  IV.  as  first  played,  Falstaff  was 
called  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  following  the  play  of  the  famous 
victories  on  which  it  was  founded.  To  his  apparent 
surprise  the  author  foimd  he  had  stirred  up  a  hornets' 
nest.  Oldcastle,  who  had  been  a  follower  of  Wickliffe, 
was  regarded  as  a  Protestant  champion,  and  the  feeling 
became  so  strong  that  the  author  we  call  Shakespeare 
was  compelled  to  change  the  name,  which  he  did  with 
completeness,  except  in  two  or  three  places;  and  in  the 
Epilogue  to  2  Henry  IV.  he  made  a  formal  withdrawal, 
when  promising  to  show  Falstaff  in  the  French  wars, 
he  adds:  "For  Oldcastle  died  a  martyr,  and  this  is  not 
the  man."  In  the  same  year  with  the  publication  of  the 
quarto  of  2  Henry  IV.,  but  probably  a  year  after  its  pro- 
duction on  the  stage,  appeared  this  play  of  Sir  John 
Oldcastle,  attributed  on  its  title  page  to  Shakespeare  and 
stated  to  have  been  acted  by  the  Earl  of  Nottingham's 
(the  Lord  High  Admiral)  servants.  The  play  is  rather 
flat  and  of  little  merit,  and  written  from  an  extreme 
Puritan  standpoint.  Oldcastle  is  made  a  wise  and  grave 
knight.  Prince  Henry's  better  genius  and  counsellor,  and 
disparaging  allusions  are  made  to  Falstaff ,  who  is  not 
introduced,  but  the  fun,  so-called,  is  given  to  a  deboshed 
knight,  who  is  also  a  kind  of  hedge  priest,  called  Sir  John 
of  Wrotham. 

Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that  Shakespeare,  or  the 
poet  we  call  by  that  name,  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
composition  of  this  play ;  but  it  certainly  looks  as  if  his 
permitting  this  very  indifferent  drama,  with  whose  sen- 
timents he   had   no   sympathy,  to  be  published  in  his 


39 

name,  was  part  of  the  amende  honorable  the  author  was 
obHged  to  i]3ake  to  the  friends  and  partisans  of  Lord 
Cobham;  and  Shakespeare's  name  had  hardly  yet,  in  1600, 
when  but  foui:  or  five  quartos  bearing  his  name  had  ap- 
peared, obtained  such  popularity  as  to  make  a  forgery 
worth  while.  ' 

These  quarto  editions  frequently  contain  in  the  title 
a  species  of  index  to  the  action  of  the  play.  Thus,  the 
first  edition  of  i  Henry  IV.  has  this  title :  "  True  His- 
toric of  Henrie  the  Fourth;  with  the  battell  at  Shrews- 
burie  between  the  King  and  Lord  Henrie  Percie,  sur- 
named  Henry  Hotspur,  of  the  North :  with  the  Humor  of 
Sir  John  Falstaffe."  The  first  edition  of  the  Merchant  on 
its  title  page  reads:  ''The  Excellent  history  of  the  Mer- 
chant of  Venice;  with  the  extreme  Cruelty  of  Shylocke 
the  Jew  towards  the  said  Merchant,  in  cutting  a  just 
potmd  of  his  flesh.  And  the  obtaining  of  Portia  by  the 
choyse  of  three  caskets." 

The  object  of  this  was,  of  cotirse,  to  attract  purchasers, 
by  reminding  them,  of  what  they  had  seen  and  enjoyed 
upon  the  stage.  The  title  also  usually  contained  a 
mention,  of  wheje  and  by  whose  servants  the  play 
had  been  acted.  Among  these  title  pages  that  of  the 
Merry  Wives  is  interesting,  both  for  its  full  de- 
scription of  the  characters,  and  for  its  statement  con- 
firming the  tradition  of  its  having  been  acted  before 
Queen  Elizabeth:  "A  Most  Pleasant  and  Conceited 
Comedie  of  Sir  John  Falstaffe,  and  the  Merrie  Wives  of 
Windsor,  entermixed  with  Sundrie  Variable  and  Pleasing 
Humours  of  Syr  Hugh  the  Welch  Knight,  Justice  Shal- 
low and  his  wise  cousin,  M.  Slender,  With  the  Swagger- 
ing Vanitee  of  Ancient  PistoU  and  Corporall  Nym.  By 
William  Shakespeare.  As  it  hath  been  at  divers  times 
Acted  by  the  Right  Honourable  my  Lord  Chamber- 
laine's  Servants,  both  before  her  Majestic,  and  elsewhere." 

So  the  title  page  to  the  first  and  second  quartos  of 
King  Lear  is  interesting  as  well  for  its  brief  analysis  of 


40 

the  play,  as  for  its  mention  of  its  production  before  King 
James.  It  is. also  peculiar  in  putting  the  author's  name 
at  the  top:  /"Mr.  William  Shakespeare,  His  true  Chron- 
icle History  "of  the  life  and  death  of  King  Lear  and  his 
three  Daughters.  With  the  unfortunate  life  of  Edgar, 
Sonne  and  heir  to  the  Earl  of  Glocester,  and  his  sullen 
and  assimied  humour  of  Tom  of  Bedlam,  as  it  was  played 
before  the  King's  Majesty  at  Whitehall,  uppon  S.  Ste- 
phen's Night,  in  Christmas  Holidayes.  By  his  Majestie's 
Servants,  playing  usually  at  the  Globe  on  the  Banck- 
side."     J 

The  title  page  of  the  first  quarto  of  Hamlet  is  valuable 
for  its  recital,  as  above  refen*ed  tP,  of  the  tragedy  having 
been  acted  at  the  universities:  "'The  Tragical  Historic  of 
Hamlet,  Prince  of  Denmarke.  By  William  Shakespeare. 
As  it  hath  been  divers  time  acted  by  his  Highnesse 
servants  in  the  Citie  of  London:  as  also  in  the  two  Uni- 
versities of  Cambridge  and  Oxford,  and  elsewhere.*' 

Butjperhaps  ^the  most  instructive  of  all  these  quarto 
editions  is  the  first  of  two  editions  of  Troilus  and  Ores- 
sida  published  in  1609.  Some,  but  not  all,  of  the  copies 
of  this  quarto  contain  an  address  which  is  worthy  of 
attention. 

This  is  headed  "A  Never  Writer  to  an  Ever  Reader, 
News."  It  praises  the  author's  comedies  generally,  and 
after  saying  the  play  now  published  is  equal  to  the  best 
comedy  of  Plautus  or  Terence,  adds,  that  when  the  author 
is  gone  and  his  comedies  out  of  sale,  "  you  will  scramble  for 
them  and  set  up  a  new  English  Inquisition. 'f  This  address 
is  also  remarkable  for  containing  the  statement  that 
Troilus  and  Cressida  is  by  the  author  of  **  Venus  and 
Adonis"  (which  poem  is  mentioned  in  the  margin)  and 
contains  the  same  salt  of  wit  as  was  bom  in  that  sea  that 
brought  forth  "Venus." 

The  same  year  1609  was  distinguished  by  the  publica- 
tion of  the  sonnets  for  the  first  time,  though  they  had  been, 
as  stated  by  Meres,  in  private  circulation  for  eleven  years 


41 

past.  The  title  pages  show  how  well  known  the  sonnets 
already  were,  for  they  were  entitled  simply  ''Shake- 
speare's Sonnets.  Never  before  imprinted."  Two  editions 
appeared  in  this  year  with  the  well-known  dedication  to 
"Mr.  W.  H. "  Now,  whether  this  was  William  Herbert, 
Earl  of  Pembroke,  or  Henry  Wriothesley,  Earl  of 
Southampton,  or  some  one  else,  is  not  important,  both 
these  nobles  were  undoubtedly  Shakespeare's  patrons, 
and  some  of  his  plays  were  first  acted  by  the  troupe 
known  as  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  servants. 

Edmimd  Bolton,  a  gentleman  connected  with  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham  for  many  years,  a  free  commoner  at 
Trinity  Hall,  Cambridge,  and  who  is  said  to  have  lived 
in  the  best  and  choicest  company  of  gentlemen,  and 
whom  Ritson  described  as  "a  professor  and  scholar," 
wrote  a  short  treatise  he  called  "  Hypercritica ;  or.  Rules 
of  Judgment  for  Writing  or  Reading  our  Histories,"  of 
which  Antony  Wood  fixes  the  date  in  1610,  but  which 
was  probably  written  a  few  years  later,  and  remained 
in  manuscript  imtil  1722.  He  there  gives  a  short  list 
of  writers  who  should  be  studied  for  the  choice  of  what 
he  calls  warrantable  English.  This  list  includes:  Sir 
Thomas  More,  the  ist  Seven  books  of  Chapman's  Iliad, 
Samuel  Daniell,  Michael  Drayton's  Heroical  Epistles, 
Marlowe's  "Hero  and  Leander,"  Shakespeare  and  Mr. 
Francis  Beaumont's  plays. 

Of  the  last  two  he  remarks,  that  they  press  tenderly 
to  be  used.  It  is  rather  remarkable  that  Bolton  did 
not  mention  Ben  Jonson,  and  refers  only  to  Marlowe's 
."**Hero  and  Leander"  and  not  his  tragedies. 
I  In  the  dedication  to  his  great  tragedy  The  White 
Devil,  pubHshed  in  quarto  in  161 2,  John  Webster  men- 
tions among  his  fellows  and  contemporaries  whom  he 
sincerely  admires,  Shakespeare,  whom  he  classes  with 
Chapman,  Ben  Jonson,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Decker 
and  Heywood,  and  compliments  on  his  right  happy  and 
copious   industry.     He   includes    Shakespeare   with   his 


42 

other  fellows  and  contemporaries,  simply  as  one  of  them, 
putting  him  no  higher  or  lower  than  the  others.  We 
may  be  surprised  at  Webster's  not  recognizing  Shakes- 
peare's superiority  to,  or  difference  from  the  others,  but 
the  argument  for  his  known  identity  is  all  the  stronger 
from  this  circumstance. 

Sir  William  Drummond,  often  spoken  of  as  "Drum- 
mond  of  Hawthomden,"  a  gentleman  of  elegant  tastes 
and  a  fondness  for  literature,  makes  three  references  to 
Shakespeare  in  those  of  his  writings  which  have  come 
down  to  us.  He  was  personally  acquainted  with  Ben 
Jonson,  who  visited  him  at  Hawthomden  in  1619.  So 
far  as  we  know,  Drummond' s  knowledge  of  Shakespeare 
as  a  writer  began  in  1606.  He  kept  for  some  years 
memoranda  of  the  books  he  read.  During  1606,  when 
he  was  in  London,  he  read  according  to  his  list:  ''Romeo 
and  Julieta,  tragedie  (i 597-1 599);  Loves  Labors  Lost, 
comedie  (1598) ;  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  (1599) ;  The  Rape 
of  Lucrece  (1594,  1598,  1600);  A  Midsummer  Nighfs 
Dream,  comedie  (1605)." 

The  dates  of  the  editions  read,  follow  the  names  of  the 
plays,  &c.,  and  it  would  appear  that  Drummond,  whose 
taste  lay  rather  toward  the  poetry  of  love,  purchased 
two  copies  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  three  of  Lucrece. 
He  does  not  give  the  name  of  the  author  in  this  list  of 
1606,  but  of  the  quarto  editions  he  mentions,  all  but  those 
of  Romeo  and  Juliet  bore  Shakespeare's  name.  In  the  fol- 
lowing year  he  went  abroad,  remaining  away  until 
1609.  In  161 1  he  resumed  his  Shakespearean  readings 
and  read,  as  appears  from  his  "Table  of  my  English 
bookes  anno  1611 " :  "■  Venus  and  Adon,  by  Schaksp.  (6th 
and  7th  ed.  1602).  The  Rape  of  Lucrece,  idem  (two  eds. 
in  1607).  The  Tragedie  of  Romeo  and  Julieta  {46.  Ing). 
A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dreame.'' 

He  must  have  lost  some  of  his  books  while  he  was 
away  and  been  obliged  to  buy  new  copies :  It  is  inter- 
esting to  know  he  paid  but  fourpence  for  his  new  copy 


43 

of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  In  his  writings  some  years  later, 
perhaps  between  1614  and  16 16,  occurs  a  note  in  which 
he  says:  ''The  authors  I  have  seen  on  the  subject  of 
Love  are  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  (whom 
because  of  their  antiquity  I  will  not  match  with  our  latter 
times),  Sidney,  Daniel  Drayton  and  Spenser.  *  *  * 
The  last  we  have  had  are  Sir  William  Alexander  and 
Shakespeare,  who  have  lately  published  their  works." 
The  works  of  Shakespeare  he  alludes  to  are  doubtless 
the  love  poems  and  dramas  he  had  read  in  1606  and 
161 1.  Some  years  later,  in  16 19,  three  years  after 
Shakespeare's  death,  Ben  Jonson  paid  his  celebrated 
visit  to  Hawthornden. 

Drummond  seems  to  have  made  a  careful  record  of  the 
opinions  Jonson  expressed  with  regard  to  contemporary 
authors,  and  mentions  that  he  said  of  Shakespeare  that 
he  lacked  *'arte,"  giving  as  an  evidence  or  illustration  of 
it,  the  fact  that  in  a  play,  he  '*  brought  in  a  number  of 
men  saying  they  had  suffered  shipwrack  in  Bohemia, 
wher  is  no  sea  neer  by  some  100  miles."  The  allusion  is, 
of  course,  to  Winter's  Tale,  which  of  course  Drummond 
had  not  read,  as  it  was  never  published  in  quarto,  and 
as  Drummond  does  not  seem  to  have  been  a  theatre- 
goer, it  was  very  likely  new  to  him.  The  criticism  that 
Shakespeare  lacked  art  was  quite  in  Jonson's  line  of 
thought  and  in  accordance  with  his  views  expressed 
De  Shakespeare  Nostrati  in  his  "Timber,"  But  the 
illustration  given,  rather  argues  geographical  ignorance, 
and  imperfect  education,  than  lack  of  art,  and  makes  us 
suspect  that  Drummond' s  record  of  the  conversation 
is  imperfect.  But  that  the  conversation  was  about  the 
actor-poet,  William  Shakespeare,  whom  Jonson  had 
been  intimately  associated  with,  and  Drummond  knew 
by  his  poems  and  comedies  relating  to  love,  and  that 
neither  Jonson  nor  Drummond  had  any  suspicion  or  doubt 
of  his  identity,  seems  abgfllutely  clear. 

My  next  witness  is  V  Thomas   Freeman,   who   in   the 


44 

second  book  of  his,  *'Runne  and  a  Great  Caste,"  pub- 
lished 1614,  has  a  sonnet  to  Master  W.  Shakespeare 
which  is  as  follows: — 

"  Shakespeare,  that  nimble  Mercury  thy  braine, 
Lulls  many  hundred  Argus-eyes  asleepe, 
So  fit,  for  all  thou  fashionest  thy  vaine. 

At  th'  horse  foote  fountaine  thou  hast  drunk  full  deepe, 
Vertues  or  vices  theame  to  the  all  one  is: 
"  Who  loves  chaste  life,  there's  Lucrece  for  a  teacher, 
Who  list  read  lust,  there's  Venus  and  Adonis, 
True  Modell  of  a  most  lascivious  leatcher, 
"  Besides  in  plaies  thy  wit  windes  like  Meander  : 
Whence  needy  new-composers  borrow  more 
Then  Terence  doth  from  Plautus  or  Menander  : 
But  to  praise  thee  aright  I  want  thy  store  : 
Then  let  thine  owne  works  thine  owne  worth  upraise, 
And  help  t'  adome  thee  with  deserved  Bales." 

This  poem  is  rather  remarkable  as  conveying  almost 
the  first  words  of  adverse  criticism  since  Greene's  attack 
in  1592.  This  is  directed  only  to  the  moral  tendency  of 
some  of  Shakespeare's  works,  and  blames  him  for  his 
apparent  indifference  to  the  moral  or  immoral  lessons 
his  poems  impart.  The  marvelous  activity  of  the  poet's 
brain  and  the  depth  of  his  poetic  inspiration  are  fully 
recognized,  as  is  also  the  identity  of  the  authorship  of 
the  plays  and  poems. 

The  allusion  to  Shakespeare  in  Edmund  Howes'  con- 
tinuation of  Stow's  Annals,  161 5, -is  brief  but  interesting. 
Howes  says,  speaking  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  and  its 
literature:  "Our  modeme  and  presant  excellent  poets 
which  worthily  flourish  in  their  own  workes,  and  all  of 
them  in  my  own  knowledge,  lived  together  in  this  Queen's 
raigne.  According  to  their  priorities,  as  near  as  I  could, 
I  have  orderly  set  down:  George  Gascoigne,  Esquire; 
*  *  *  Edmund  Spenser,  Esquire;  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
Knight  *  *  *  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  Knight;  *  *  * 
Master  John  Lillie,  gentleman;  Master  George  Chap- 
man, gentleman;  M.  W.  Warner,  gentleman;  M.  Willi 
Shakespeare,  gentleman ;  Samuel  Daniell,  Esquire ;  Michael 
Drayton,  Esquire;      *     *     *      m    Benjamin    Johnson, 


45 

gentleman.  *  *  *"  Here  this  very  respectable  writer, 
continuing  a  standard  chronicle  of  the  time,  asserts  on 
his  personal  knowledge  Shakespeare's  life  with  his  fellows 
as  a  recognized  poet,  excellent  and  worthily  flourishing 
with  them,  and  despite  his  lowly  origin  gives  him  the  title 
of  gentleman,  which  the  Stratford  actor  struggled  so 
hard  to  obtain,  and,  like  Davies  and  Heywood,  calls  him 
affectionately  by  his  abbreviated  name. 

After  Shakespeare's  death  in  1616  and  before  the  publi- 
cation of  the  first  folio  in  1623,  the  most  important  piece 
of  testimony  is  the  sonnet  or  epitaph  which  was  printed 
among  Donne's  collected  poems  in  1633,  but  which  the 
preponderance  of  evidence  indicates  was  the  composition 
of  William  Basse  and  not  later  in  date  than  1622.  Several 
copies  in  manuscript  are  extant — one,  perhaps  the 
original,  subscribed  by  William  Basse  himself.  There  is 
considerable  variation  between  the  different  copies,  but 
the  same  general  thought  and  spirit  are  preserved  in  all. 
It  is  clearly  alluded  to  by  Ben  Jonson  in  his  introductory 
poem  prefixed  to  the  folio.  The  selection  of  Shakespeare, 
Chaucer,  Spenser,  and  Beaumont  as  England's  four 
greatest  poets  is  interesting,  and  the  last  lines  clearly  show 
that  William  Shakespeare  was  not  the  least  of  the  four 
in  the  writer's  view: —  a^>'a/'/.' 

"ON  MR.  WM.  SHAKESPEARE,  HE  DYED  IN  APRIL  1616.        ^ 

"Renowned  Spencer  lye  a  thought  more  nye  '  ^  ' 

To  learned  Chaucer,  and  rare  Beaumont  lye  *  *^  "?  *J 

A  little  neerer  Spenser  to  make  roome  s.     jy 

For  Shakespeare  in  your  threefold,  fowerfold  Tombe.  I    ^%^^*^ 

To  lodge  all  fowre  in  one  bed  make  a  shift  I  L  *  a 

Vntill  Doomesdaye,  for  hardly  will  a  fift  ^  ?  C  J 

Betwixt  this  day  and  that,  by  Fate  be  slayne,  ^^m.      ' 

For  whom  your  Curtaines  may  be  drawn  againe.  \^       *'^'^*t* 

If  your  precedency  in  death  doth  barre  ^"^ 

A  fourth  place  in  your  sacred  sepulcher, 
Vnder  this  earned  marble  of  thine  owne 
Sleepe,  rare  Tragoedian,  Shakespeare,  sleep  alone  ; 
Possesse  as  Lord,  not  Tenant,  of  thy  Graue, 
That  vnto  us  and  others  it  may  be 
Honor  hereafter  to  be  layde  by  thee." 


46 

This  discussion  has  brought  us  down  to  1622,  the  year 
before  the  pubHcation  of  the  first  foHo  by  Hemmings  and 
Condell.  The  Anti-Shakespereans  often  treat  this  pro- 
duction, its  preface,  dedication,  and  the  accompanying 
poems  by  Ben  Jonson  and  others,  as  the  first  and  only 
substantial  evidence  in  favor  of  Shakespeare  being  the 
author  of  the  dramas  we  know  as  his,  and  have  there- 
fore directed  their  heaviest  artillery  against  it,  and 
have  endeavored  to  convict  not  only  Hemmings  and 
Condell  of  deliberate  imposture,  but  to  make  rare  Ben 
Jonson  out  a  party  to  the  fraud,  for  even  Baconians 
recognize   that   Jonson   must   have    known    the    facts. 

Besides  the  two  well-known  poems  by  Ben  Jonson, 
Hemmings  and  Condell  prefixed  to  the  folio  two  prose 
letters  of  dedication,  one  to  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and 
Montgomery  and  the  other  to  the  "  Great  Variety  of  Read- 
ers," and  three  commendatory  poems,  one  by  Leonard 
Digges,  one  by  Hugh  Holland,  and  the  third  by  "  J.  M." — 
and  a  list  of  the  original  actors'  names  including  those  of 
Shakespeare,  Burbage,  and  Kempe.  The  first  folio  in- 
cluded all  the  recognized  plays  except  Pericles  Prince  of 
Tyre;  but  Troilus  and  Cressida,  though  imprinted  be- 
tween the  histories  and  the  tragedies,  is  not  included  in 
the  prefatory  catalogue,  of  plays ;  and  it  would  seem  as 
if  the  inclusion  of  this  drama,  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  printed  in  Shakespeare's  lifetime  with  express  com- 
mendatory mention  of  its  being  by  the  author  of 
"Venus  and  Adonis,"  had  not  been  included  in  the  orig- 
inal plan  of  publication,  for  it  is  for  the  most  part  with- 
out pagination,  and  the  page  numbers  given  to  the  first 
two  or  three  pages  would  seem  to  indicate  an  intention 
to  have  inserted  it  between  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  Timon. 
The  manner  of  its  insertion  and  paging  would  argue 
that  Hemmings  and  Condell  did  not  acquire  posses- 
sion of  Troilus  and  Cressida  until  their  book  was  already 
in  t3rpe,  and  had  to  thrust  it  in  awkwardly,  as  best  they 
could. 


The  two  dedications  are  very  important.     The  first  is     '^^"C 
to~the  "Most  noble  and  incomparable  pair  of  brethren 
William  Earle  of  Pembroke,  &c.,  Lord  Chamberlaine,  and 
Philip  Earl  of  Montgomery,   &c.,  both  Knights  of  the 
Garter." 

The  first  of  these  nobles  we  have  known  already  as 
William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  a  steady  patron  of 
Shakespeare's,  and  under  whose  name  the  Curtain  and 
the  Globe  Companies  were  sheltered,  as  shown  by  im- 
prints of  several  quartos  between  1594  and  1600.  Both 
Pembroke  and  Montgomery  were  patrons  of  Shakes- 
peare's friend,  John  Davies  of  Hereford,  the  writing  mas- 
ter. The  dedication  recites  and  relies  on  the  friend- 
liness shown  to  Shakespeare  in  his  lifetime  by  the  two 
noble  brothers: — 

"  But  since  your  L.L.  have  been  pleas'd  to  think  these 
trifles  something,  heretofore  ;  and  have  prosequted 
both  them  and  their  author,  living,  with  so  much  favour ; 
we  hope  that  they  outliving  him  *  *  *  you  will  use  the 
like  indulgence  toward  them,  you  have  done  unto  their 
parent."  It  will  be  observed  that  here  is  a  distinct  asser- 
tion that  the  earls  had  admired  these  plays  and  favored 
their  actor-author  in  his  lifetime.  This  statement  and 
introduction  was  never  repudiated  by  the  earls,  but, 
apparently,  graciously  accepted.  The  compilers  go  on  to 
say: — 

**  For  so  much  were  your  L.L.  likings  of  the  several 
parts,  when  they  were  acted,  as  before  they  were  pub- 
lished the  Volume  asked  to  be  yours.  We  have  but  col- 
lected them,  &c.  *  *  *  to  keepe  the  memory  of  so 
worthy  a  Friend  &  Fellow  alive,  as  was  our  Shakespeare,  m^ 
by  humble  offer  of  his  playes  to  your  noble  patronage."     ' 

Can  it  be  conceived  that  Hemmings  and  Condell  would 
have  had  the  audacity  to  say  this,  if  it  were  not  true? 
Would  not  the  earls  if  it  were  false,  have  repudiated  their        '^ 
alleged  liking  of  the  acted  plays,  and  favor  to  the  editors*  C 


48 

friend  and  fellow?  What  motive  could  these  great 
nobles  have  had  to  acquiesce  in  and  countenance  this 
sham  if  it  were  all  an  imposture?  Neither  of  them  had 
any  special  relation  of  kindness  or  affection  to  Bacon. 
The  Earl  of  Pembroke,  then  Lord  Chamberlain,  was  one 
of  his  judges,  as  was  also  Shakespeare's  other  great 
patron,  the  Earl  of  Southampton,.  Pembroke  was  not 
so  violent  against  Bacon  at  the  trial  as  Southampton 
was,  but  preserved  a  judicial  dignity  and  impartiality 
of  manner,  and  maintained  the  middle  view  as  to  his 
condemnation  and  sentence,  which  the  court  adopted. 
Bacon,  in  his  correspondence,  speaks  rather  slightingly 
of  Pembroke,  but  with  the  highest  admiration  of  Mont- 
gomery. In  1623  Bacon  had  already  fallen,  and  none 
were  so  poor  as  to  do  him  reverence.  He  had  lost  every 
position  of  honor,  and  only  a  lingering  remnant  of  the 
King's  favor  saved  him  from  suffering  not  only  disgrace 
but  the  imprisonment  to  which  he  had  been  sentenced ; 
he  was  also  at  this  time  very  necessitous  and  earnestly 
seeking  aid  from  the  crown.  Is  it  not  a  patent  absurd- 
ity to  suppose,  that  such  noblemen  would  consent  to  this 
use  of  their  names,  to  sustain  a  conscious  lie  to  gratify 
the  fallen  Chancellor? 

In  conclusion  the  compilers  say:  "We  most  humbly 
consecrate  to  your  H.  H.  these  remains  of  your  servant 
Shakespeare;  that  what  delight  is  in  them  may  be  ever 
your  L.L.  the  reputation  his  and  the  faults  ours,"  &c., 
&c.  To  my  mind  the  genuineness  and  sincerity  of  this 
dedication  is  transparent,  and  the  affection  and  admira- 
tion of  the  compilers  for  their  worthy  friend  and  fellow 
is  so  simply  and  naturally  expressed  as  to  be  beyond 
the  reach  of  contrivance.  Who  can  doubt  that  their 
worthy  friend  and  fellow,  Shakespeare,  was  the  ''friendly 
Shakespeare"  of  Antony  Scolloker;  Thomas  Heywood's 
and  John  Davies'  ''Good  Will  Shakespeare";  "our 
fellow  Shakespeare"  of  the  Return  from  Parnassus;  the 
"worthy  poet"  of  John  Marston? 


49 

The  **  Second  Dedication  to  the  Great  Variety  of 
Readers"  is  as  frank  and  natural,  though  in  quite  a 
different  vein.  It  is  this/  second  introduction  which 
contains  the  celebrated  description  of  Shakespeare's 
manner  of  composition:  ''Who  as  he  was  a  happie 
imitator  of  Nature  was  a  most  gentle  expresser  of  it. 
His  mind  and  hand  went  together ;  and  what  he  thought, 
he  uttered  with  that  easiness,  that  we  have  scarse  re- 
ceived from  him  a  blot  in  his  papers."  l  This  description, 
though  far  from  pleasing  to  Ben  Jonson,  widely  differing 
as  it  did  from  his  own  labored  manner  of  composition, 
corresponds  to  the  white  heat  at  which  Weever  de- 
scribes Shakespeare  as  producing  the  children  of  his 
imagination. 

Some  of  the  Anti-Shakespeareans  contend  that  the 
publication  of  Shakespeare's  dramas  in  so  sumptuous 
a  form  in  1623  and  the  printing  of  a  second  edition  so 
soon  as  1632,  but  nine  years  later,  shows  that  there 
must  have  been  some  powerful  support  behind  the  pub- 
lication. I  have  argued  Bacon  could  not  have  furnished 
such  support;  but  further,  we  know  in  16 16  Ben  Jonson 
had  brought  out  his  plays  in  as  handsome  a  form,  and 
we  find  Mr.  Prynne — certainly  not  a  friendly  witness — in 
1632,  the  year  of  the  publication  of  the  second  folio, 
commenting  with,  great  indignation  on  their  rapid,  suc- 
cessful sale.  He  says:  "Some  Play -books  since  I  first 
imdertooke  the  subject,  are  growne  from  Quarto  into 
Folio,  which  yet  bear  so  good  a  price  and  |sale,  that  I 
cannot  but  with  grief e  relate  it,  they  are  now  new" 
(meaning,  of  course,  that  the  first  edition  being  sold 
off,  a  new  one  had  been  brought  out),  and  referring 
distinctly  in  the  margin  to  Ben  Jonson  and  "Schackspere  " 
as  the  writers  alluded  to.  Of  "  Schackspere "  he  par- 
ticularly complains  that  his  plays  are  printed  on  the 
best  crown  paper,  better  than  that  used  for  Bibles, 
"which  hardly  have  such  vent  as  they."     So  out  of  the 


50 

mouth  of  the  enemy  we  have  shown  that  Hemmings 
and  Condell's  was  a  fair  business  adventure,  to  which 
they  were  encouraged  by  Jonson's  success  with  his 
foHo,  and  one  which  was  amply  justified  by  the  result, 
the  rapid  sale  of  the  first  requiring  the  publication  of  a 
second  edition. 

Besides  the  personal  statements  of  the  editors  Hem- 
mings and  Condell,  the  first  folio  contains  words  of  com- 
mendation by  several  contemporary  poets  who  were 
certainly  in  a  position  to  know  whereof  they  spoke  and 
who  had  in  all  probability  known  Shakespeare,  then  but 
seven  years  dead.  These  were  Hugh  Holland,  Leonard 
Digges,  *' J.  M.,"  who  may  have  been  John  Marston,  but 
was  more  likely  Jasper  Mayne  or  James  Mabbe,  and  last 
but  most  important,  Ben  Jonson  himself,  who  of  course 
knew  Shakespeare  well.  Ben  Jonson  we  must  pass  over 
for  the  present,  so  as  to  treat  his  testimony  about  Shakes- 
peare as  a  whole,  but  the  others  are  not  without  weight 
and  importance.  Both  Holland  and  "J.  M."  lament 
Shakespeare's  early  death,  and  predict  an  immortality 
to  his  plays  contrasted  with  the  brief  term  of  the 
author's  life: — 

i"  For  though  his  line  of  life  went  soon  about, 
The  life  yet  of  his  lines  shall  never  out." 

Holland's  sonnet  is  entitled,  ''  Upon  the  Lines  and  Life 
of  the  Famous  Scenicke  Poet  Master  William  Shakes- 
peare," and  from  its  form  and  expression  would  seem 
to  have  been  written  rather  as  a  dirge  immediately  after 
Shakespeare's  death  than  with  an  immediate  view  to 
the  publication  of  his  works.  "J.  M.,"  on  the  other 
hand,  writes  with  immediate  reference  to  the  folio 
publication : — 

"We  thought  thee  dead,  but  this  thy  printed  worth 
Tells  thy  Spectators,  that  thou  wents't  but  forth 
To  enter  with  applause." 


^ 


51 

All  "J.  M.'s"  poem  shows  that  Shakespeare  is  in  his 
mind  as  an  actor  as  well  as  a  player,  and  Holland's  has 
a  distinct  reference  to  the  Globe  Theatre,  as  well  as  the 
familiar  theatrical  comparison  of  Death,  to  a  tyring 
house,  or  actor's  dressing  room. 

Leonard  Digges'  poem  is  longer,  and  the  most  inter- 
esting, except  Jonson's.  Digges  we  know  was  bom  in 
1588;  he  had  therefore  in  his  early  days  been  a  contem- 
porary of  Shakespeare,  and  he  addresses  him  as  a  pupil 
or  scholar  might  a  deceased  admired  teacher. 

The  poem  is  to  the  "  Memorie  of  the  deceased  Authour 
Maister  W.  Shakespeare."  He  begins  with  apparent  sur- 
prise that  the  works  of  this  admired  poet  had  not  been 
produced  sooner: — 

"Shakespeare  at  length  thy  pious  fellows  give 
The  world  thy  Workes." 

He  alludes  to  the  monument  at  Stratford,  and  says 
when  time  shall  have  dissolved  it,  *'  Here  we  alive  shall 
view  thee  still;"  predicts  immortality  to  his  fame,  until 
something  better  is  written  than  the  "passions  of  Juliet 
and  her  Romeo,"  or  a  scene  more  nobly  taken  "than 
when  thy  half-sword  parleying  Romans  spake." 

The  quarrel  scene  between  Brutus  and  Cassius  had 
made  a  deep  impression  on  Digges,  for  we  will  find  him 
again  expressing  a  deep  admiration  for  it  in  a  longer  com- 
memorative poem  upon  Master  William  Shakespeare, 
the  deceased  author,  and  his  poems.  The  date  of  this 
poem  is  uncertain;  it  was  not  published  until  1640,  after 
Digges'  death,  which  occurred  in  1635.  It  would  seem  to 
me  probable  that  the  verses  were  written  not  many  years, 
however,  after  1623.  In  this  poem  Digges  displays  a 
distinct  feeling  against  Ben  Jonson.  He  contradicts 
Jonson  as  to  Shakespeare's  manner  of  composition,  con- 
firming Weever,  and  Hemmings  and  Condell  as  to  Shakes- 
peare's ease  and  facility  of  composition,  and  contrasts 


w 


52 

the  tiniversal  popularity  of  Shakespeare's  plays  on  the 
stage,  with  the  empty.houses  which  oft  greeted  Ben  Jon- 
son's  labored  dramas.  He  opens  with,  "  Poets  are  borne, 
not  made,"  in  direct  contradiction  of  Jonson's  "A  good 
poet's  made,  as  well  as  borne."  He  attributes  to  Shakes- 
peare **Art  without  Art  unparaleled  as  yet."  He  says, 
"Nature  only  helpt  him;"  contrasts  him  with  others  in 
declaring  him  free  from  borrowed  plumage,  from  Greek, 
Latin,  or  contemporary  "vulgar  coarseness,"  and  from 
plagiarism.  He  alludes  to  both  the  Globe  and  Black 
Friars  as  scenes  of  Shakespeare's  triumphs,  which  he 
proceeds  to  rehearse,  and  contrast  with  learned  Ben  Jon- 
son's limited  success : — 

"So  have  I  scene  when  Caesar  would  appeare 
And  on  the  stage  at  half  sword  parley  were, 
Brutus  and  Cassius:  oh  how  the  Audience 
Were  ravished,  with  what  wonder  they  went  thence 
When  some  new  day  they  would  not  brooke  a  line 
Of  tedious  (though  well  laboured)  Catiline. 
Sejanus  too  was  irksome,  they  priz'de  more 
Honest  lago  or  the  jealous  Moore." 

While  praising  The  Fox  and  the  Alchy misty  yet  Digges 
says  that  sometimes,  when  acted  at  special  request,  the 
receipts  would  hardly  pay  for  the  fire  and  doorkeepers. 
On  the  other  hand : — 

"When  let  but  Falstaffe  come, 
Hall,  Poines,  the  rest  you  scarce  shall  have  a  room, 
All  is  so  pestered;  let  but  Beatrice 
And  Benedicke  be  seen,  loe  in  a  trice 
The  Cock-pit,  Galleries,  Boxes  all  are  full 
To  hear  Malvoglio  that  cross-gartered  Gull." 

Leonard  Digges  was  manifestly  a  constant  frequenter 
of  the  Theatre,  both  during  Shakespeare's  life  and  later. 
His  verses  seem  to  show  familiarity  with  the  Globe  The- 
atre, which  was  burned  in  161 1,  as  well  as  the  Black  Friars. 


53 

He  thought  he  knew  Shakespeare's  style  and  manner  of 
composition,  and  was  quite  disposed  to  fall  out  with 
Jonson — whom  he  evidently  did  not  Hke — about  it,  and  to 
maintain  against  Jonson,  that  the  divinely  gifted  poet 
needed  not  the  patient  drudgery,  which  Jonson  deemed 
necessary  to  real  success.  iDigges  also  shows  his  famil- 
iarity with  the  fact,  that  the  poet  he  loved  and  honored, 
was  the  actor  buried  at  Stratford,  and  that  he  knew  of 
the  monument  therejThe  marked  disagreement  between 
him  and  Ben  Jonson,  makes  their  testimony  the  more 
conclusive,  when  it  coincides  as  it  does,  on  the  essential 
question  of  the  identity,  of  the  actor  and  the  poet. 

The  remaining  testimony  annexed  to  the  folio  is  that 
of  rare  Ben  Jonson  himself.  His  rugged,  forceful  per- 
sonality, is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  marks,  in  the 
literary  history  of  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  we  know  more  about  him,  than  about  almost 
any  other  writer  of  that  time.  That  he  knew  all  about 
Shakespeare,  both  as  a  man  and  a  poet,  can  hardly  be 
questioned,  and  the  school  of  writers  who  in  these  days 
find  his  testimony  like  a  lion  in  their  path,  are  driven 
to  assail,  not  the  competency,  but  the  credibility  of  the 
witness,  and  impute  to  him  either  the  bias  of  a  cor- 
rupt bargain  with  Hemmings  and  Condell,  whereby  he 
sold  his  encomium  on  Shakespeare  for  gold,  knowing  it 
to  be  false;  or  to  a  slavish  admiration  and  reverence  for 
Bacon's  lofty  position  and  talents,  which  induced  him  to 
become  knowingly  a  party  to  the  great  imposture,  for  the 
purpose  of  preserving  Bacon's  secret.  How  Hemmings 
and  Condell  could  raise  a  stifficient  sum,  to  purchase  the 
honesty  of  the  poet  laureate  and  first  literary  man  of  the 
day;  or  how  Bacon,  ruined  and  disgraced,  long  hated 
by  the  commons,  and  now  condemned  and  forsaken  of 
the  lords,  sentenced  to  fines  he  could  not  pay,  and  saving 
a  bare  pittance  of  his  former  wealth,  by  the  irregularly 
exercised  favor  of  the  King  and  the  favorite,  could  help 


54 

to  influence  Ben  Jonson  to  listen  to  the  blandishments 
of  the  players  who  were  trying  to  keep  alive  the  memory 
of  their  dead  fellow,  is  not  explained. 

Without  relying  on  the  tradition  of  Shakespeare's  early 
befriending  Jonson,  and  procuring  him  an  opportunity  of 
reaching  the  stage,  we  know  that  Shakespeare  and  Jon- 
son :^ere  in  a  position  of  friendly  acquaintance  in  159^^ 
forjin  that  year  Every  Man  in  His  Humour,  Jonson' s  first 
succ^sful  comedy,  was  produced  at  the  Globe,  where 
Shakespeare's  voice  and  influence  were  strong,  and  that 
Shakespeare  played  a  leading  part  in  that  comedy  on  its 
first  production/]  probably  "Knowell,"  the  first  part, 
since  Shakespeare's  name  appears  at  the  head  of  the  first 
"column  of  the  list  of  the  original  players,  in  the  folio  of 
1616,  printed  under  Jonson's  own  supervision.  1  This  cer- 
tainly shows  a  friendly  relation  between  the  older  actor 
and  the  yoimg  playwright,  and  some  esteem  enter- 
tained by  the  latter  for  the  former,  since  from  what  we 
know  of  Jonson,  he  never  would  have  intrusted  so  im- 
portant a  part  in  his  new  comedy,  to  an  actor  he  did  not 
believe  to  be  educated  and  competent;  and  the  success 
of  the  comedy,  which  was  marked,  shows  it  was  well 
played. 

It  was  a  few  years  later,  but  before  his  relations  to 
Shakespeare's  company  had  been  dissolved,  that  Jonson 
produced  his  great  tragedy.  The  Fall  of  Sejanus.  We 
know  that  William  Shakespeare  played  one  of  the  lead- 
ing parts  in  that  play  on  its  production,  for  his  name  ap- 
pears at  the  top  of  the  second  column  of  the  list  of  actors' 
names,  the  name  of  Burbage  appearing  at  the  head  of 
the  first  column,  Lowin  and  Hemmings  and  Condell 
also  being  in  the  cast.  As  usual,  we  have  no  record 
of  what  part  he  took,  but  in  that  severe  and  classic 
tragedy,  none  of  the  leading  parts  could  have  been  given 
to  an  incompetent  or  uneducated  actor.  Tradition  gives 
Shakespeare  a  still  further  relation  to  Sejanus,  and  re- 


55 

lates  him  to  have  been  the  author  of  at  least  one  scene 
in  the  tragedy.  As  in  this  review,  however,  we  are  not 
dealing  with  anything  but  written  evidence,  no  matter 
how  much  credence  we  might  well  attach  to  a  long  stage 
tradition,  we  must  look  elsewhere  for  confirmation  of 
the  story. 

We  know  that  there  was  a  scene  in  the  original  version 
written,  not  by  Jonson,  but  by  a  friend.  When  Jonson 
had  broken  away  from  the  Globe  and  Shakespeare's  com- 
pany, he  altered  his  tragedy  of  Sejanus,  as  he  himself  tells 
us  in  his  preface,  by  striking  out  the  portion  written  by 
another  hand  and  inserting  a  substituted  scene  or  scenes 
of  his  own  composition.  We  have  no  knowledge  as  to 
what  were  the  scene  or  scenes  thus  changed,  and  Jonson 
does  not  tell  us  who  was  the  friend  who  originally  sup- 
plied this  portion  of  his  tragedy,  but  his  language  on  the 
subject  of  the  change,  particularly  his  allusion  to  the 
"  Happy  Genius"  to  whom  he  admits  his  original  indebt- 
edness, would  seem  to  suggest  that  Shakespeare,  whose 
ease  and  faciHty  of  composition  always  excited  his  criti- 
cism, is  intended  to  be  referred  to.  Certainly  his  exag- 
gerated praise  of  the  cancelled  scenes  and  excessive 
depreciation  of  his  own  work  in  comparison,  would 
seem  to  imply  something  of  a  sneer. 

The  belief  that  Shakespeare  was  the  author  of  this 
suppressed  passage  in  Sejanus  is,  I  think,  strongly  con- 
firmed by  Leonard  Digges'  language  in  the  poem  to  which 
I  have  referred  above.  Digges,  as  mentioned,  takes  up 
the  cudgels  violently  in  Shakespeare's  behalf,  as  against 
a  supposed  disparagement  of  him  by  Jonson  or  Jonson' s 
friends.  After  asserting  Shakespeare  to  be  a  bom,  not 
a  made  poet,  in  contradiction  of  all  Jonson' s  theories,  and 
contending  that  his  plays  should  not  be  called  ''works," 
as  it  was  no  work  to  Shakespeare  to  write  them,  evidently 
reflecting  on  Jonson,  who  published  his  plays  in  1616  as 
his  works,  Digges  goes  on : 


'[) 


!h*f 


L_  'Next  Nature  only  helpt  him,  for  look  thorow 


This  whole  booke,  thou  shalt  find  he  doth  not  borrow 

One  phrase  from  Greeke,  nor  Latin  imitate, 

Nor  once  from  Vulgar  Language  translate. 

Nor  plagiari  like  from  others  gleane, 

Nor  begges  he  from  each  witty  friend  a  scene, 

To  piece  his  acts  with,  all  that  he  doth  write 

Is  pure  his  owne,  plot,  language  exquisite."      [ 

This  praise  of  Shakespeare  by  Digges  we  may  not  think 
in  all  respects  justified,  but  I  do  not  think  we  can  doubt, 
particularly  in  view  of  what  precedes  and  follows,  that  it 
is  Ben  Jonson  with  whom  he  contrasts  Shakespeare,  and 
that  it  is  Ben  Jonson  whom  he  alludes  to  as  begging 
scenes  from  his  witty  friends,  and  it  is  hard  not  to  be- 
lieve that  Digges  intended  to  refer  Jonson's  bor- 
rowing a  part  of  the  original  Sejanus  from  the  "Happy 
Genius"  whom  he  mentions  in  his  preface,  and  to  inti- 
mate that  Shakespeare  was  the  witty  friend  who  had 
helped  to  piece  out  his  barren  invention. 
\  During  the  years  ensuing  Jonson 's  break  with  the  Globe 
Theatre  and  its  management,  his  plays  were  full  of  attacks 
on  many  of  his  old  companions,  and  also  abounded  with 
sneers  and  derogatory  allusions  at  and  about  Shakes- 
peare's dramas;  but  there  are  not  to  be  found  any  reflec- 
tions or  disparagement  of  Shakespeare  personally.  His 
criticism  of  Shakespeare's  art,  made  to  Drummond  in 
16 1 9,  which  has  been  above  mentioned,  is  quite  in  keeping 
with  Jonson 's  usual  turn  of  thought,  as  evidenced  in  his 
casual  censures  and  criticisms,  as  well  as  with  his  de- 
liberate judgment  in  "De  Shakespeare  Nostrati." 

The  views  expressed  in  his  prefatory  poems  in  the 
first  folio  in  1623  must  be  conceded  to  be  written  in  a 
different  spirit ;  here  he  seems  ready  to  praise  Shakespeare 
for  some  qualities  which  his  other  friends  did  not  claim 
for  him,  and  which  Ben  Jonson  at  other  times  criticised 
his  lack  of.     The  first  poem  opposite  the  portrait  is  not 


57 

difficult.  Jonson  begins  by  complimenting  both  the 
poet  and  the  engraver,  but  urges  the  reader  to  study 
the  book  rather  than  the  portrait  if  he  wishes  to  know 
Shakespeare,  whom  he  characterizes  as  "gentle,"  a  trait 
the  opposite  of  Jonson 's  own  characteristics,  but  which 
he  concurs  with  the  general  opinion  of  his  contempora- 
ries, in  applying  to  Shakespeare.  No  one  who  reads 
these  twelve  lines  can  doubt  that  Ben  Jonson  was  per- 
fectly familiar  as  well  with  William  Shakespeare's  intel- 
lectual and  moral  qualities  as  with  his  face. 

The  longer  and  principal  poem  is  more  difficult  of  con- 
struction, and  is  in  some  respects  hard  to  reconcile  with 
some  of  Ben  Jonson's  other  expressions,  but  in  the  main 
it  speaks  earnestly  and  decisively.  It  is  addressed  "To 
the  memory  of  my  beloved,  the  author  Mr.  William 
Shakespeare,  and  what  he  hath  left  us."  Note  the  ex- 
treme assertion  of  personal  affection.  This  is  entirely 
consistent  with  all  we  know  of  Jonson's  and  Shakes- 
peare's personal  relations,  as  well  with  their  early  friend- 
ship as  with  Jonson's  latest  declaration  of  attachment  in 
"Timber,"  where  he  says  in  the  midst  of  severest  criti- 
cism, that  "he  loved  the  man."  i^And  in  all  Jonson's 
carping  criticism  of  Shakespeare's  writings,  and  his  vehe- 
ment demmciation  of  other  actors  and  playwrights,  no 
word  of  personal  reflection  on  Shakespeare  can  be  foundTi 

In  the  very  beginning  of  his  poem  he  falls  foul  oF~" 
Shakespeare's    other    admirers    and    their    praises.     He 
says  :==: 

/  "But  these  wayes, 

*■ — .  Were  not  the  paths  I  meant  unto  thy  praise 
For  seeHest  Ignorance  on  these  may  Hght, 
Which  when  it  sounds  at  best,  but  echo's  right; 
Or  blinde  Affection,  which  doth  ne'er  advance 
The  truth,  but  gropes  and  urgeth  all  by  chance; 
Or  crafty  malice  might  pretend  this  praise, 
And  think  to  mine,  when  it  seemed  to  raise. 
******* 

But  thou  art  proof  against  them.     *     *     *"         j 


58 

These  lines  seem  to  me  to  be  the  key  to  the  poem. 
Jonson  was  indignant  at  Hemmings  and  Condell's  praise 
of  Shakespeare  as  a  "happie  imitator  of  nature,  whose 
mind  and  hand  went  together,"  in  the  letter  to  the 
"great  variety  of  readers"  which  immediately  preceded 
Jonson's  beautiful  poem  in  the  folio,  as  years  afterwards 
he  again  overflowed  with  anger  in  "Timber"  at  what  he 
considered  injudicious  praise  of  Shakespeare  for  his  de- 
fects. I  While  resolved  to  praise  his  dead  friend  and  his 
works  to  his  highest  capacity,  Jonson  was  equally  deter- 
mined, as  it  seems  to  me,  to  score  to  the  uttermost 
those  whom  he  considered  his  friend's  foolish  admirers, 
and  to  differentiate  his  laudation  from  theirs.  1 
[__In  the  next  division  of  his  poem,  rare  Ben  mmilges  in 
a  little  fling  at  William  Basse,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
the  previous  year  had  poetically  suggested  to  Chaucer, 
Spenser,  and  Beaumont  to  make  room  in  their  threefold 
tomb  for  Shakespeare.     Jonson  says: — 

"  My  Shakespeare  rise,  I  will  not  lodge  thee  by- 
Chaucer,  or  Spenser,  or  bid  Beaumont  lye 
A  little  further  to  make  thee  a  roorae. 
Thou  art  a  monument  without  a  tombe 
And  art  alive  still  while  thy  booke  doth  live."       / 

He  then  proceeds  to  laud  Shakespeare  as  surpassing 
not  only  all  the  preceding  English  playwrights,  but  the 
great  dramatists,  comic  as  well  as  tragic,  of  Greece  and 
Rome;  but  towards  the  end  of  the  third  division  of  his 
poem  Jonson  concludes  it  is  time  to  make  his  panegyric 
absolutely  distinct  from  that  of  Shakespeare's  other 
friends,  and  on  different  grounds : — 

"Yet  must  I  not  give  nature  all." 

This  is  exactly  what  Shakespeare's  other  admirers 
usually  did,  and  what  Hemmings  and  Condell  and  Leonard 


59 

Digges  had  done  in  their  prefatory  words  to  the  first 
f  oHo : — 

"Thy  art, 
My  gentle  Shakespeare,  must  enjoy  a  part. 
For  though  the  Poet's  matter,  nature  be; 
His  art  must  give  the  fashion .     And  that  he 
Who  casts  to  write  a  Uving  line,  must  sweat, 
(Such  as  thine  are)  and  strike  a  second  heat 
Upon  the  Muse's  anvils;  turn  the  same 
(And  himself  with  it)  that  he  thinks  to  frame 
Or  for  the  laurell,  he  may  gain  a  scome. 
For  a  good  Poet's  made,  as  well  as  borne, 
And  such  wert  thou." 

Jonson,  it  is  clear,  was  happy  enough  to  praise  his  dead 
friend  to  the  skies  as  a  poet,  but  in  doing  so  he  would  not 
abate  a  jot  from  his  theories  of  what  a  poet  must  be,  so 
Shakespeare  must  perforce  be  brought  to  Ben's  own 
standard,  and  be  made  to  labor  and  sweat,  and  tediously 
beat  out  his  lines  on  the  Muse's  anvil,  because  Jonson, 
while  he  recognized  the  lines  as  good,  would  not  concede 
or  admit  that  they  could  be  wrought  out  except  by  the 
Jabgr  improhus  which  characterized  his  own  method. 
Thus,  he  goes  on  to  say: — 

"LfOoke  how  the  father's  face 
Lives  in  his  issue;  even  so  the  race, 
Of  Shakespeare's  minde  and  manner  brightly  shines 
In  his  well  toned,  and  true  filled  lines, 

In  each  of  which  he  seems  to  shake  a  lance,     

As  brandish't  at  the  Eyes  of  Ignorance."  / 

We  probably  have  here  one  of  the  usual  puns  on  the 
poet's  name.  In  conclusion,  quoting  Shakespeare  as  the 
"  Sweet  Swan  of  Avon,"  he  alludes  to  the  admiration  both 
''Eliza  and  our  James"  had  entertained  for  his  plays, 
thus  confirming  in  a  few  lines,  the  identity  of  the  poet 
with  the  Stratford  actor,  and  the  tradition  of  the  suc- 
cess his  plays  had  met  when  performed  before  royalty. 
To  my  mind,  the  wide  divergence  between  Jonson,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  Hemmings  and  Condell,  and  Leonard 
Digges  on  the  other,  is  a  strong  argument  for  the  genu- 


6o 

ineness  of  both.  Had  not  Hemmings  and  Condell  been 
straightforward  and  simple-hearted  men,  it  is  not  Hkely 
they  would  have  allowed  their  great  effort  to  go  out  to  the 
world,  with  these  discordant  notes  in  the  dedication  and 
foreword,  and  without  an  attempt  to  reconcile  them ;  and 
Jonson  in  his  firm  and  devoted  adherence  to  his  theories, 
furnishes  the  strongest  confutation  to  those  who  would 
impute  to  him  insincerity.  We  can,  I  think,  all  through 
his  poem  read  the  conflict  in  his  mind  between  his  genu- 
ine admiration  for  his  friend  and  his  poetry,  and  his 
indignation  and  contempt  for  his  friend's  blind  fol- 
lowers and  admirers. 

In  the  ensuing  years  we  have  in  the  "  Staple  of  News  " 
and  the  ode  prefixed  to  the  "New  Inn,"  one  or  two  of 
Ben  Jonson's  accustomed  .^ibes  against  Shakespeare's 
writings  or  expressions,  but|in  his  ''Timber,  or  Discover- 
eries  made  upon  men  and  matter;  as  they  have  flowed 
out  of  my  daily  readings,"  written  some  time  between 
1630  and  1637,  but  only  published  posthumously  in  1641, 
we  have  Ben's  final  and  sincere  conclusion  of  Shakespeare 
under  the  head  "De  Shakespeare  Nostrat."  This,  which 
may  be  called  Ben  Jonson's  private,  or  closet  opinion 
of  Shakespeare,  is  remarkably  close  in  many  respects  to 
the  beautiful  panegyric  prefixed  to  the  first  folio,  but 
reminds  us  also  of  his  remarks  to  Drummqnd  and  of 
several  of  his  criticisms  and  carping  censures,  r  He  begins 
by  reference  to  the  players'  praise  of  Shakespeare  for  his 
facility,  &c. ;  that  he  never  altered  a  line.  This  is  exactly 
what  Hemmings  and  Condell  had  said  in  their  "letter 
to  the  general  reader  "  which  gave  Jonson  such  offense. 
In  his  poem  Jonson  combatted,  as  we  have  seen,  their 
view  as  to  Shakespeare's  manner  of  composition,  and 
expressed  his  belief,  that  Shakespeare  as  well  as  himself, 
had  spent  laborious  nights  and  days,  in  hammering  out 
and  moulding  his  lines.  Here  he  accepts  their  state- 
ment, and  taking  thereupon  the  other  side,  says  it  would 
have  been  much  better  had  he  given  more  pains,  which 


6i 

woiild  have  saved  him  from  many  blunders:  "My  an- 
swer hath  been,  would  he  had  blotted  a  thousand."  He 
excuses  himself  for  this  speech,  which  had  been  taxed  as 
malevolent,  by  adding,  "  I  had  not  told  posterity  this, 
but  for  their  ignorance,  who  chose  that  circumstance  to  j 
commend  their  friend  by  wherein  he  most  faulted."]^ 
That  is,  he  would  have  preferred  to  have  handed  Shakes- 
peare's name  down  to  posterity,  as  he  did  in  his  poem,  as 
one  who  was  a  true  and  patient  artist,  as  well  as  gifted 
genius,  but  as  most  of  Shakespeare's  friends  would  not 
have  it  so,  but  persisted  in  lauding  him  for  a  style  and 
manner  of  composition  which  Jonson  abhorred,  his  de- 
votion to  art  and  candor  compelled  him  to  speak  out  in 
censure;  but  this  grieved  him  because  of  his  personal 
love  for  the  man,  and  in  this  I  think  we  can  do  Ben  the 
•-->   justice  to  say  he  never  wavered. 

**And  to  justifie  mine  owne  candor  (for  I  loved  the 
man,  and  doe  honour  his  memory,  on  this  side  idolatry, 
as  much  as  any) .  He  was  indeed  honest,  and  of  an  open 
and  free  nature ;  had  an  excellent  Phantsie ;  brave  notions, 
and  gentle  expressions."  /For  this  clear  and  attractive 
summary  of  Shakespeare^ s  personality,  which  confirms 
what  we  had  been  told  of  our  poet  by  other  contempo- 
raries, such  as  Davies,  ScoUoker,  Heywood,  and  Chettle, 
we  must  ever  be  thankful  to  Ben  Jonson. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected,  however,  that  Shakes- 
peare's admirers,  now  becoming  worshippers,  would  be 
satisfied  with  the  restricted  meed  of  praise  which  Jonson 
was  willing  in  writing  and  conversation  to  give  Shakes- 
peare. Ben  Jonson  called  their  excessive  praise  idolatry, 
and  they  called  his  criticism  malevolence.  Is  not  all  this 
very  genuine  and  human,  and  is  it  possible  it  is  all  a 

— *  fraud  and  a  delusion  ? 

I  The  well-known  anecdote  of  the  discussion  as  to  the 

merits  of  Shakespeare  as  a  poet,  between  Sir  John  Suck- 
ling, Sir  William  D'Avenant,  Lord  Falkland,  Ben  Jonson, 
and  John  Hales  of  Eton,  and  the  wager  or  trial  which 


; 


62 

followed,  4s,  I  think,  entitled  to  be  viewed  as  something- 
more  than  tradition.     We  have  it  on  the  authority,  not 
of  Rowe  only,  but  of  Dry  den,  and  Dry  den  knew  D'Ave- 
nant  and  wrote  plays  in  association  with  him.    In  fact,  as 
will  be  remembered.  Dry  den  and  D'Avenant  brought  out 
together  in  1667  a  revised  version  of  The  Tempest  under 
the  name  of  The  Enchanted  Island.     D'Avenant  was  the 
son  of  Shakespeare's  old  acquaintance,  the  landlord  of  the 
Crown  Inn,  at  Oxford,  and  personally  knew  Shakespeare 
in  his  boyhood.    The  incident  must  have  occurred  before 
1633,  as  Lord  Falkland  died  in  that  year:  it  shows  old 
Ben  maintaining  his  accustomed  thesis  of  Shakespeare's 
lack  of  learning,  and  being  vehemently  encountered  by 
Shakespeare's  devoted  admirers,  Sir  John  Suckling  and 
Mr.  Hales,    fcertain  it  is  that  Jonson  never  forebore  his 
criticisms  on  Shakespeare's  lack  of  art,  of  learning,  and  of 
assiduous  labor,  and  it  is  equally  certain  that  as  Jonson 
knew  all  about  Bacon,  his  learning,  his  greatness,  and  his 
industry,  he  could  not  and  would  not  have  thus  spoken 
about  Shakespeare,  had  he  believed  he  was  talking  of 
Bacon;   and  that  he  could  have  been  in  ignorance  of 
such  a  secret  as  that  Shakespeare,  whom  he  knew  so 
intimately,  praised  so  warmly,  and  criticised  so  sharply, 
was  not  the  author  of  his  plays,  is  inconceivable.     Sir 
John  Suckling,  just  alluded  to,  was  almost  a  contem- 
porary of  Shakespeare,   and  was  his  fervent  admirer; 
bom  in  1609,  and  a  child,  therefore,  at  the  time  of  Shakes- 
peare's death,  he  lived  to  the  age  of  thirty-two,  dying  in 
1 64 1.     In  a  poetical  letter  to  the  same  Mr.  Hales  of  Eton 
of  whom  I  have  just  spoken,  inviting  him  to  London, 
Suckling  most  happily  alludes  to  Shakespeare  and  Jon- 
son's  manner  of  composition  in  conversational  couplets : — 

"The  sweat  of  learned  Jonson's  brain, 
And  gentle  Shakespeare's  easier  strain, 
A  hackney  coach  conveys  you  to, 
In  spite  of  all  that  rain  can  do. 
And  for  your  eighteen  pence  you  sit 
The  Lord  and  Judge  of  all  fresh  wit."  ^ 


63 

Suckling's  friends  or  family  must  have  had,  I  think, 
some  p^sonal  relation  with  Shakespeare.  Pin  a  letter  to 
a  friendi.  written  about  1636,  he  describes  a  visit  to  the 
part  of  "the  river  Trent  which  Hotspur  complained  of  as 
cutting  a  monstrous  cantle  out  of  his  share.  Suckling 
speaks  of  his  friend,  Mr.  WilHam  Shakespeare,  and  says 
for  his  sake  he  was  curious  to  see  this  scantlet  of  ground. 
But  most  interesting  of  Suckling's  mentions  is  what  he 
calls,  '*A  supplement  of  an  imperfect  copy  of  verses  of 
Mr.  William  Shakespeare."  These  verses  consist  of  nine 
lines — one  six-line  stanza  and  the  three  first  lines  of 
another,  which  Suckling  says  are  Shakespeare's — writ- 
ing in  the  margin  "  Thus  far  Shakespeare" — and  fifteen 
lines  added  by  Suckling,  which  make  altogether  four 
six-line  stanzas.  Suckling's  lines  are  so  charming  that 
though  we  can  feel  the  difference,  we  can  hardly  define  it. 

But  the  strangest  thing  about  the  few  Shakespearean 
lines  which  describe  a  lovely  girl  asleep,  is  that  the  first  four 
of  the  lines  in  the  first  Shakesperean  stanza  and  the  first 
three  of  the  second  are  found  with  slight  modification  in 
the  description  of  Lucrece's  slumber  in  the  "  Rape  of  Lu- 
crece,"  but  in  that  poem  the  stanzas  are  of  seven  instead 
of  six  lines  each,  and  the  latter  parts  of  the  stanzas  are 
quite  different.  It  would  look  as  if  in  some  way  there  must 
have  come  into  Suckling's  hands  a  manuscript  of  a  variant 
form  of  the  Lucrece,  or  of  another  intended  poem  of 
Shakespeare's,  using  the  same  general  ideas.  I  hope  I  will 
be  pardoned  for  inserting  both  the  three  first  stanzas  of 
the  imperfect  poem  as  supplemented  by  Suckling,  and 
the  stanzas  from  "The  Rape  of  Lucrece"  which  contain 
the  corresponding  lines.  It  may  be  remarked  that  the 
verses  supplemented  by  Suckling  are  in  the  form  and 
metre  of  *'  Venus  and  Adonis,"  which  it  is  not  improbable 
Shakespeare  would  have  adopted  in  the  first  sketch  of 
his  ensuing  poem,  though  afterwards  changed  to  a  seven- 
line  stanza. 


f 


64 

SUCKLING'S  COPY  OF  VERSES. 
I. 

One  of  her  hands,  one  of  her  cheeks  lay  under. 

Cozening  the  pillow  of  a  lawful  kisse, 
Which  therefore  swell' d  and  seemed  to  part  asunder 

As  angry  to  be  rob'd  of  such  a  blisse: 
The  one  lookt  pale,  and  for  revenge  did  long, 
Whilst  t'other  blusht,  cause  it  had  done  the  wrong. 

II. 

Out  of  the  bed  the  other  fair  hand  was 
On  a  green  satin  quilt,  whose  perfect  white 
Lookt  like  a  Dazie  in  a  field  of  grasse, 
Thus  far  And  shew'd  like  unmelt  snow  unto  the  sight, 

Shakespeare.       There  lay  this  pretty  perdue,  safe  to  keep 
The  rest  of  th'  body  that  lay  fast  asleep. 

III. 

Her  eyes  (and  therefore  it  was  night)  close  laid, 
Strove  to  imprison  beauty  till  the  mom, 

But  yet  the  doors  were  of  such  fine  stuffe  made 
That  it  broke  through,  and  shew'd  itself  in  scorn, 

Throwing  a  kind  of  light  about  the  place, 

Which  tumd  to  smiles  stil  as't  came  near  her  face. 

Rape  op  Lucrece. 
(Lines  386-396.) 
Her  Lilly  hand  her  rosie  cheeke  lies  under, 

Cozining  the  pillow  of  a  lawful  kisse 
Which  therefore  angry,  seemed  to  part  in  sunder. 

Swelling  on  either  side  to  want  his  blisse, 
Between  whose  hills  her  head  entombed  is; 

Where  like  a  vertuous  monument  she  lies, 
To  be  admirde  of  lewd  iinhallowed  eyes. 

Without  her  bed  her  other  fayre  hand  was 
On  the  greene  coverlet,  whose  perfect  white 

Shewd  like  an  Aprill  daisie  on  the  grasse 
With  pearlie  sweat,,  resembling  dew  of  night. 

But^  one  more  witness  and  I  have  done.  This  witness 
is,  after  Shakespeare,  the  greatest  English  poet,  and  was 
almost  a  contemporary.  John  Milton  was  also  born  in 
1609.     In  his  earlier  days  he  was  fond  of  the  drama,  and 


65 

fondly  admired  Shakespeare,  whom  he  called,  as  we  will 
see, ''My  Shakespeare."  There  was  something  in  the 
man  that  even  after  his  death  awoke  personal  attach- 
ment. In  1630,  when  just  of  age,  and  probably  still  at 
college,  Milton  wrote  the  "Epitaph  on  the  admirable 
dramatick  poet  W.  Shakespeare"  which  was  prefixed  to 
the  second  folio  in  1632.  In  this  he  proclaims  Shakes- 
peare's independence  of  any  hand-raised  monument  for 
the  perpetuation  of  his  fame,  and,  fully  accepting  his 
fellows'  account  of  Shakespeare's  marvelous  facility  of 
composition,   wrote: — 

"What  neede  my  Shakespeare  for  his  honour'd  bones, 
The  labotir  of  an  age  in  piled  stones, 
Or  that  his  hallow' d  Reliques  should  be  hid 
Under  a  starre-y-pointing  Pyramid? 
Dear  sonne  of  Memory,  great  heir  of  Fame, 
What  needs't  thou  such  dull  witnesse  of  thy  Name? 
Thou  in  our  wonder  and  astonishment 
Hast  built  thyself  a  lasting  monument; 
*  *  Whilst  to  the  shame  of  slow  endeavouring  Art 
Thy  easie  numbers  flow." 

Jonson,  who  was  a  Cambridge  man,  and  whose  learning 
must  have  commended  him  to  Milton,  was  living,  but 
Milton  adopted  the  view  of  Hemmings  and  Condell  and 
Leonard  Digges,  and  antagonized  Ben  Jonson  as  Suck- 
ling did.  A  few  years  later  and  after  some  time  spent 
in  London,  where  Milton  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing 
both  Jonson's  and  Shakespeare's  iplajs^p.  the  stage  and 
may  have  met  Ben  Jonson  personallyln.^  wrote  the  famed 
lines  in  "L' Allegro"  in  commendation  of  the  stage: — 

"Then  to  the  well  trod  stage  anon, 
If  Jonson's  learned  sock  be  on, 
Or  Sweetest  Shakespeare,  fancy's  child, 
Warble  his  native  wood-notes  wild." 

Certainly  Milton,  mingling  with  the  circle  of  literary 
people  in  London  where  Shakespeare's  memory  was  yet 
fresh  and  green,  heard  no  hint  that  Bacon,  only  a  few 


66 

years  deceased,  was  the  author  of  the  plays;  nor,  pro- 
foundly learned  and  cultured  as  he  was,  did  he  seem  to 
perceive  any  insuperable  difficulty  in  his  being  the  author 
of  the  plays  which  he  spoke  of  as  ''easie  numbers  and 
wood-notes  wild 'i-^but  evidently  preferred  to  Jonson's 
learned  dramas.  \  Still  later,  when  the  stress  of  civil  war 
had  passed  over  tne"land  and  Milton  himself  had  espoused 
with  passionate  earnestness  the  cause  which  would  have 
been  most  repugnant  to  Shakespeare's  sympathies,  he 
retained  his  interest  in,  and  appreciation  of  the  dramatist 
in  his  historical  plays.  Thus  in  his  ''Eikonoklastes,'* 
published  as  an  answer  to  the  "Eikon  Basilike"  in  1643, 
he  takes  advantage  of  Charles  I.'s  known  devotion  to 
Shakespeare,  to  compare  him  to  the  Richard  III.  of  his 
favorite  author,  in  the  hypocrisy,  and  pretended  devotion 
to  religion,  of  which  he  accuses  Charles,  and  adds  that 
"the  poet  used  not  much  license  in  departing  from  the 
truth  of  history,  which  defines  him  as  a  deep  dissembler, 
not  of  his  affections  only,  but  of  Religion. ^\  Certainly 
Milton,  who  was  as  a  statesman  necessarily  Smiliar  with 
Lord  Verulam  and  his  political  writings,  never  suspected 
him  to  be  the  author  of  Richard  III.  Had  he  done  so, 
Bacon's  doubts  as  to  the  character  of  that  remarkable 
monarch,  as  hinted  in  his  Henry  VH.,  would  certainly 
Jaave  occurred  to  him. 

r,^hus  from  1592,  when  William  Shakespeare  first  be- 
gan to  be  talked  of  as  a  writer  of  plays,  down  to  a  period 
some  twenty  years  after  his  death,  the  writings  of  his 
contemporaries  show  a  gradual  rise  and  steady  prog- 
ress and  development  of  his  fame— ;f erfectly  simple  and 
natural,  if  these  productions  were  the  genuine  writings 
of  Willianj.  Shakespeare,  but  very  strange  if  they  were 
not  his.  •  We  find  the  plays  and  poems  both  accepted 
without  any  exhibition  of  wonder  or  surprise  by  the 
actors,  his  daily  companions  and  fellow  craftsmen, 
as  well  as  by  persons  in  a  higher  class  of  life.     We  find 


67 

that  many  of  his  plays  were  recognized  and  accepted  as 
Shakespeare's  before  they  had  been  given  to  the  pubHc, 
except  on  the  stage,  and  that  the  sonnets  passed  from 
hand  to  hand  in  private  circulation,  many  years  before 
they  were  published.  We  find  that  the  voice  of  adverse 
criticism  was  not  entirely  silent  but  that  his  works  were 
criticised,  for  faults  natural  to  one  who  had  largely 
educated  himself  during  his  career  as  a  writer,  and  was 
lacking  in  the  advantages  of  early  and  systematic  study. 
We  find  further,  however,  that  the  character  of  the  actor 
Shakespeare,  is  the  subject  of  one  imiform  and  steady 
current  of  praise,  for  gentleness,  simplicity,  kindness  and 
honesty,  from  the  time  of  poor  Green's  death,  whose  at- 
tack furnished  the  one  discordant  note  in  the  laudatory 
anthem.  And  during  all  this  period  neither  friend  nor 
critic  expressed  either  doubt  as  to  the  authorship,  or  an 
idea  of  incongruity,  in  the  player  Shakespeare  being  the 
author  of  the  plays  or  poems.  If  therefore  it  was  the 
case  that  the  actor  Shakespeare  was  a  man  of  low  tastes 
and  slight  abilities,  incapable  of  writing  the  works  at- 
tributed to  him,  il^ho  for  whatever  reason  lent  his  name 
either  .-to  Francis  Bacon,' or  some  tmknown  genius,  it 
seems  to  me  we  would  have  to  postulate,  not  merely  a 
conspiracy  of  silence,  but  a  conspiracy  of  imposture,  to 
which  not  only  decent  and  respectable  actors  such  as 
Hemmings  and  Condell,  Burbage,  &c.,  but  such  authors 
and  writers  as  Ben  Jonson,  Thomas  Heywood,  Michael 
Drayton,  Francis  Meres,  John  Weever,  John  Da  vies  and 
Leonard  Digges  were  parties,  and  to  which  noblemen  of 
such  high  position  and  character  as  the  Earl  of  South- 
ampton, who  was  personally  hostile  to  Bacon,  and  those 
two  noble  brothers,  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Montgom- 
gomery,  who  had  no  special  friendship  for  him,  were 
privy;  and  that  this  conspiracy,  thus  known  among  so 
many,  was  yet  so  closely  kept,  that  such  men  as  Milton 
and  Suckling  writing  but  a  few  years  later,  while  many 


68 

of  William  Shakespeare's  the  actor's  contemporaries 
were  living,  and  while  the  details  of  his  life  were  lovingly 
cherished,  never  heard  an  inkling  or  suspicion  that  fancy's 
child,  warbling  his  wood  notes  wild,  was  only  a  fictitious 
being,  compounded  of  a  rather  coarse  and  ignorant  actor, 
and  a  secluded  writer  whose  position  was  so  lofty,  or 
whose  pride  was  so  peculiar,  that  he  was  ashamed  to  be 
known  as  the  author  of  the  plays,  which  were  at  once 
the  delight  of  the  people,  and  the  admiration  of  the 
scholar.       f 

My  r^niarks  may  perhaps  be  justly  criticised  as  con- 
taining nothing  new.  This  is,  of  course,  true,  as  on  this 
side  of  the  ocean,  original  research  in  Elizabethan  and 
Jacobean  records  and  antiquities  is  impossible;  and  I 
have  not  cited  or  quoted  anything  which  is  not  to  be 
found  in  books  more  or  less  familiar  to  the  Shakes- 
pearean student.  But  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  much 
of  this  evidence,  though  in  no  respect  new,  has  been 
laigely  forgotten  of  late  years,  and  that  in  its  collocation 
and  discussion,  I  may  perhaps  have  been  able  to  draw 
from  this  mass  of  evidence,  viewed  as  a  whole,  logical 
inferences  and  conclusions  which  are  not  without  value. 
At  the  least,  I  hope  to  have  been  able  to  present  in 
compendious  form  a  sheaf  of  effective  arrows  with 
which  the  lover  of  our  gentle  friend  and  fellow,  William 
Shakespeare,  may  arm  his  bow  of  English  or  Spanish 
yew  for  the  discomfiture  of  the  assailing  hosts  of  cipher 
worshippers,  syndicate  dreamers,  and  Baconian  idolaters. 


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